Palliative Medicine 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.

Palliative care supports patients suffering from life-limiting illnesses by providing relief from physical, emotional and spiritual suffering, improving the quality of life for them and their families. It is an important component of good patient care, an integral part of the continuum of support for patients suffering with advanced cancer and end stage organ diseases. Providing good palliative care requires both sound clinical knowledge and compassion.With new chapters on end stage organ diseases, spiritual care and medical ethics, all healthcare professionals will find wisdom and practical advice in this book by the patient's bedside. The editors and contributors of the 2nd Edition of The Bedside Palliative Medicine Handbook have taken great care to provide readers with an evidence-based, updated guide to the practice of palliative medicine.

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.

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.

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.

Evidence-Based Practice of Palliative Medicine is the only book that uses a practical, question-and-answer approach to address evidence-based decision making in palliative medicine. Dr. Nathan E. Goldstein and Dr. R. Sean Morrison equip you to evaluate the available evidence alongside of current practice guidelines, so you can provide optimal care for patients and families who are dealing with serious illness. Confidently navigate clinical challenges with chapters that explore interventions, assessment techniques, treatment modalities, recommendations / guidelines, and available resources - all with a focus on patient and family-centered care. Build a context for best practices from high-quality evidence gathered by multiple leading authorities. Make informed decisions efficiently with treatment algorithms included throughout the book. Access the complete, fully searchable contents online at www.expertconsult.com.

This comprehensive revision of the invaluable reference presents a rigorous survey of pain and palliative care phenomena across the lifespan and across disciplines. Grounded in the biopsychosocial viewpoint of its predecessor, it offers up-to-date understanding of assessments and interventions for pain, the communication of pain, common pain conditions and their mechanisms, and research and policy issues. In keeping with the current public attention to painkiller use and misuse, contributors discuss a full range of pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches to pain relief and management. And palliative care is given expanded coverage, with chapters on interventive, ethical, and spiritual concerns. · Pain, intercultural communication, and narrative medicine. · Assessment of pain: tools, challenges, and special populations. · Persistent pain in the older adult: practical considerations for evaluation and management. · Acute to chronic pain: transition in the post-surgical patient. · Evidence-based pharmacotherapy of chronic pain. · Complementary and integrative health in chronic pain and palliative care. · The patient’s perspective of chronic pain. · Disparities in pain and pain care. This mix of evolving and emerging topics makes the Second Edition of the Handbook of Pain and Palliative Care a necessity for health practitioners specializing in pain management or palliative care, clinical and health psychologists, public health professionals, and clinicians and administrators in long-term care and hospice.

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.