Key Concepts In Palliative Care

Taking account of the British government's "End of Life Care Strategy", contributors set out the key issues affecting practice across a range of health and social care contexts. The book covers topics ranging from dying and death to symptom management and spiritual care, backed up with practical examples. Each entry comprises: a snapshot definition of the topic, key points, a discussion of the main debates, links to practice through thought-provoking case histories, and suggestions for further reading.

Key Concepts in Palliative Care provides just this in a compact, fifty-concept guide to the field. Taking account of the government's "End of Life Care Strategy", contributors set out the key issues affecting practice across a range of health and social care contexts.

This book on the history of palliative care, 1500-1970 traces the historical roots of modern palliative care in Europe to the rise of the hospice movement in the 1960s. The author discusses largely forgotten premodern concepts like cura palliativa and euthanasia medica and describes, how patients and physicians experienced and dealt with terminal illness. He traces the origins of hospitals for incurable and dying patients and follows the long history of ethical debates on issues like truth-telling and the intentional shortening of the dying patients’ lives and the controversies they sparked between physicians and patients. An eye opener for anyone interested in the history of ethical decision making regarding terminal care of critically ill patients.

Palliative and end of life care are concerned with the physical, social, psychological and spiritual care of people with advanced disease. It currently has a poorly developed research base, but the need to improve this is increasingly recognised. One of the reasons for the lack of research - and the variable quality of the research that is undertaken - is the difficulty of conducting research with very ill and bereaved people. Standard and well-established research methods may need to be adapted to work in this context. This means that existing research methods textbooks may be of limited use to palliative care practitioners seeking to do research for the first time, or to more experienced researchers wanting to apply their knowledge in palliative care settings. This research methods textbook is the first to be written specifically for palliative care. It has been edited by four experienced palliative care academics with acknowledged expertise and international reputations in this field. It encompasses methods used in both clinical and health services research in palliative care, with sections on clinical, epidemiological, survey and qualitative research, as well as a section covering skills needed in any research project. Each chapter provides readers with an up to date overview of the research method in question, an understanding of its applicability to palliative care and of the particular challenges of using it in this setting. It is essential reading for all palliative care researchers.

Worldwide, more than 50 million people die each year and it is estimated on the basis of the conditions leading to death that up to 60% of them could benefit from some form of palliative care. It is a public health challenge to ensure that these people can access good palliative or end-of-life care. Pursuing good population health essentially also implies striving for a 'good enough death' and a good quality of care at the end of life. Safeguarding a good quality of the end of life for patient populations for whom it is appropriate requires a public health approach. In most developed countries ageing populations that increasingly die from chronic diseases after a prolonged -often degenerative- dying trajectory make up the public health challenges for palliative care. The very large baby boom generation will soon reach old age and can be expected to pose strong demands regarding the circumstances and care at their end of life. Only by applying a public health approach to palliative care (instead of individual patient perspectives), can societies successfully help to organize and plan end-of-life care in accordance with these aspirations. A Public Health Perspective on End of Life Care presents a synthesis and overview of relevant research and empirical data on the end of life that can bear a basis for a more systematic 'public health of the end of life'. The book focuses on population health, rather than clinical interventions or other aspects of individual health, and discusses studies using different methodologies (not only epidemiological research). The focus is on the quality of the end-of-life of populations, in particular from social sciences, environmental sciences, and humanities perspectives.

Choices in Palliative Care brings together leading experts to spotlight core issues in the field and identify ways PC can fill gaps in current care systems. This far-sighted volume redefines palliative care as interdisciplinary and integrative, bridging acute and long-term care to respond to clients’ evolving needs. Those teaching health service delivery courses will find this material especially useful.

Palliative care is moving through an important period of expansion and development, spreading beyond its original hospice base to encompass care in the community, in hospitals, health centres, clinics and nursing homes. It can now be found in over 70 countries of the world. What challenges does this multidisciplinary speciality face as it seeks to combine high grade pain and symptom control with sensitive psychological, spiritual and social care? What are the implications of current constraints on health policy and planning? How do ethical issues about resource allocation and end of life care impinge? Can palliative care be further extended to include conditions other than cancer? New Themes in Palliative Care addresses these and many related issues in ways which will be readily accessible to students of health and social care as well as to those involved in purchasing or providing palliative care services, and to social scientists interested in chronic illness, death and dying. Its editors are respected experts in the field with backgrounds in the social sciences, nursing and medicine and the book's contributors include leading international figures from a wide range of palliative care and academic disciplines.

This title is directed primarily towards health care professionals outside of the United States. Content has been thoroughly revised and updated in line with changes in practice and policy both locally and internationally, particularly the UK NICE guidance on Supportive and palliative care for people with cancer and the Care of the Dying Pathway. It reflects the rapid development of palliative nursing as an emerging specialty. It helps in the process of defining palliative nursing and how it interfaces with other disciplines within the specialty. The text is divided into three sections and comprehensively, yet sensitively, covers all aspects of palliative nursing. Key themes covered include pain control, symptom control, loss and grief, and handling loss. . A strong emphasis is placed on the integration of theory and practice and evidence based care. . Reconciliation of the theory and practice is achieved by the use of case studies. . It addresses malignant and non-malignant palliative care. . Research and extensive literature support each chapter. Content has been thoroughly revised and updated in line with changes in practice and policy both locally and internationally, particularly the UK NICE guidance on Supportive and palliative care for people with cancer and the Care of the Dying Pathway . Three new chapters on: . Sexuality . Care of the Dying Pathway . Changing roles of the nurse in palliative care . New appendix on North American drug names equivalents for the international market