Hospice And Palliative Care Handbook

This practical guide briefly covers the historical and epidemiological background of palliative care and the growth of palliative medicine as a specialty, before dealing with major physical, psychological, spiritual, and symptom management issues from diagnosis to bereavement care.

This comprehensive pocket-size handbook is the essential reference for clinicians and others serving patients with advanced or life-limiting illness. It offers up-to-date, relevant, and highly practical guidance to expertly meet the challenges of serving these patients and their families. This user-friendly manual emphasizes the importance of honoring patients' wishes throughout their medical journey while meeting their whole-person, often complex needs-from symptom management to attending to spiritual and emotional suffering-and always acknowledges the context of patients' lives, including the needs of loved ones supporting them. The layout makes finding information quick and easy, with alphabetically organized chapter headings and a detailed index. Organ-system-based chapters offer disease-specific, goals-of-care discussion guidance and reviews of etiology, signs and symptoms, assessment, and management-including standard treatment as well as palliative options. Other chapters cover communication with patients and families, consultation with colleagues, and code status discussions, along with valuable subjects such as withdrawing life support, ethics, spirituality, physician-assisted death, and palliative options of last resort. Readers will find practical management strategies for symptoms such as pain, nausea, dyspnea, and delirium. In addition, chapters on opioid use and dosing, and pharmacology of commonly used palliative medications, make this guide an invaluable resource.

This handbook provides an easily navigable source of information about the day-to-day management of patients requiring palliative and hospice care. Succinct, evidence-based, topically focused content is supplemented by extensive tables and algorithms. The table of contents and balance of coverage follows the core curriculum of the American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, thus meeting the educational and clinical information needs of students, residents, fellows, and nurse practitioners. An expert team of clinicians, led by world renowned Eduardo Bruera, address approach to care; psychosocial and spiritual issues; impending death; grief and bereavement; assessment and management of pain; management of non-pain symptoms such as nausea, dyspnea, depression, insomnia, and bleeding; communication and team work; and ethical and legal decision making.

This handbook offers a practical, thorough approach to the clinical practice of palliative care. Adding North American authors to its roster of UK contributors, the third edition of this award-winning book addresses important changes in the evidence base of palliative care, as well as an emphasis on end-of-life community-based care. It features new chapters on dementia and advance care planning, a simplified lymphoedema discussion, and an ongoing commitment to providing essential guidance for physicians, nurses, and all primary care providers involved in palliative care in hospital, hospice, and community settings.

Handbook of palliative care Comprehensive resource utilising up-to-date evidence and guidelines to support non-specialists in palliative care in both hospital and community settings Building on the success of previous editions, this new edition of the award winning handbook has a practical focus and provides the user with an approach to clinical challenges while also providing enough information to explain why this approach is suggested. The 4th edition of Handbook of Palliative Care supports non-specialists in palliative care in both hospital and community settings and focuses on holistic care and therapeutic interventions. With several new chapters and content significantly updated to reflect new evidence and practice, the 4th edition also presents up-to-date evidence, guidance in a succinct format and utilises flow charts and figures to enhance the accessibility of information. Written by four highly accomplished nursing and medical authors with over 100 years’ experience between them in hospital, hospice, care home and community settings, Handbook of Palliative Care provides: Guidance from clinicians who are experts in their field An acknowledgment of the requirements of healthcare professionals attending to patients with palliative care needs, along with a dedicated chapter addressing this topic Contemporary guidance on medicine management, symptom control and managing complications of cancer Palliative care in heart failure, renal disease and advanced liver, neurological and respiratory diseases An in-depth look at patient and public involvement in palliative care and inequity Skill development including communication, ethical considerations and spiritual care New chapters including frailty, dementia, and multi-morbidity; and palliative care for people living with mental illness and people with intellectual disabilities This 4th edition of Handbook of Palliative Care is an ideal supporting resource for doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals caring for patients with palliative care needs in the UK and beyond. The 1st edition was the winner of the 1999 BMA Medical Book of the Year Prize.

This is the only handbook for hospice and palliative care professionals looking to enhance their care delivery or their programs with LGBTQ-inclusive care. Anchored in the evidence, extensively referenced, and written in clear, easy-to-understand language, LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care provides clear, actionable strategies for hospice and palliative physicians, nurses, social workers, counselors, and chaplains.