Oxford American Handbook Of Hospice And Palliative Medicine

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.

Preceded by Oxford American handbook of hospice and palliative medicine / edited by Eduardo Bruera, Sriram Yennurajalingam. 2011.

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 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.

In an ageing population, geriatric medicine has become central to general practice, and to emergency and general internal medicine in the hospital setting. Diseases are more common in the older person, and can be particularly difficult to assess and to treat effectively in a field that has limited evidence, yet makes up a substantial proportion of the work of most clinicians. Fully updated, this second edition of the Oxford Handbook of Geriatric Medicine includes all the information required to deliver effective geriatric care. Guidance is given on a range of key treatment areas, indicating where practice differs from that of younger adults or is ill informed by evidence, where dangers lurk for the inexperienced clinician, and on the many ethical and clinical dilemmas common in geriatric practice. This accessible handbook is essential reading for all junior doctors and specialist trainees in geriatric medicine and general internal medicine, and for all medical and nursing staff who manage older people.

This handbook explores the topic of death and dying from the late twentieth to the early twenty-first centuries, with particular emphasis on the United States. In this period, technology has radically changed medical practices and the way we die as structures of power have been reshaped by the rights claims of African Americans, women, gays, students, and, most relevant here, patients. Respecting patients' values has been recognized as the essential moral component of clinical decision-making. Technology's promise has been seen to have a dark side: it prolongs the dying process. For the first time in history, human beings have the ability control the timing of death. With this ability comes a responsibility that is awesome and inescapable. How we understand and manage this responsibility is the theme of this volume. The book comprises six sections. Section I examines how the law has helped shape clinical practice, emphasizing the roles of rights and patient autonomy. Section II focuses on specific clinical issues, including death and dying in children, continuous sedation as a way to relieve suffering at the end of life, and the problem of prognostication in patients who are thought to be dying. Section III considers psychosocial and cultural issues. Section IV discusses death and dying among various vulnerable populations such as the elderly and persons with disabilities. Section V deals with physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia (lethal injection). Finally, Section VI looks at hospice and palliative care as a way to address the psychosocial and ethical problems of death and dying.

This new edition provides the essential clinical guidance both for those embarking upon a career in palliative medicine and for those already established in the field. A team of international experts here distil what every practitioner needs to know into a practical and reliable resource.

Psychiatric, or psychosocial, palliative care has transformed palliative medicine. Palliation that neglects psychosocial dimensions of patient and family experience fails to meet contemporary standards of comprehensive palliative care. While a focus on somatic issues has sometimes overshadowed attention to psychological, existential, and spiritual end-of-life challenges, the past decade has seen an all encompassing, multi-disciplinary approach to care for the dying take hold. Written by internationally known psychiatry and palliative care experts, the Handbook of Psychiatry in Palliative Medicine is an essential reference for all providers of palliative care, including psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health counselors, oncologists, hospice workers, and social workers.