Med News Palliative Care

If you think palliative care and the ICU don't go together, think again...

Although around two thirds of us would prefer to die at home, in the developed world the trend in recent years has been for the majority to spend their final days in an institutional setting...

The conclusion of a report by the Commission on Assisted Dying that there is a strong case for providing the choice of assisted dying for terminally ill people' has been welcomed by Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying (HPAD), as well as the way in which the conclusion was reached...

There is a clear link between several quality indicators developed by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma and clinical outcomes, a new study published in JAMA revealed. In the U.S., traumatic injuries are the fifth most prevalent cause of death, and the leading cause of death in individuals younger than 45 years...

A study led by the University of Kentucky researcher Elaine Wittenberg-Lyles found that hospice family caregivers are "second order patients" themselves and require their own unique care needs. The study, published in a recent issue of Qualitative Health Research, assessed the individual stressors that caregivers experience...

A report commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, and published in the journal Bioethics, claims that assisted suicide should be legally permitted for competent individuals who make a free and informed decision, while on both a personal and a national level insufficient plans and policies are made for the end of life...

Finding innovative, minimally invasive ways to treat liver cancer - and being able to tailor that treatment individually to patients - are hallmarks of interventional radiologists. Advances in yttrium-90 (Y-90) radioembolization for liver cancer, a leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, are reported in studies in the October Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology...

Parents of children in the palliative stage of cancer favour aggressive chemotherapy over supportive care compared with health care professionals, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) Cancer is the second most common cause of death for children aged 5 to 14 in North America...

When children are facing a life-threatening illness, bringing in palliative medicine specialists can help both the child and family improve the child's quality of life, for however long he or she lives...