Literature Review

Save A Lot donates 7,000 pounds of food and $500 to local hospice Hazard Herald [KY], by Justin Begley; 4/18/24Save A Lot has once again lent its support by donating seven thousand pounds of food and water, along with a $500 gift card, to the Greg and Noreen Hospice Center. This year marks the fifth consecutive year that the grocery chain has made such a donation to hospice. Jason Smith, a district manager for Save A Lot, alongside management from other stores, was on hand to unload truckloads of supplies to replenish the hospice’s pantry ...

Hospice of the Red River Valley celebrates milestone in Heather's House constructionInforum, Fargo, ND; by Michael McGurran; 4/19/24An important milestone for a first-of-its-kind Hospice facility in North Dakota, a dream project literally decades in the making. It was just two years ago that staff broke ground on the ambitious project. Heather's House will serve as a "hospital in disguise," a place with 18 beds where family and loved ones can spend their final time together in comfort, rather than in a hospital. It's all fully funded by donors. "You brought to life, a 25-year dream for this community," Hospice of the Red River Valley Executive Director Tracee Caprol told a crowd of donors on Friday, April 19. "Twenty-five years. You have the hearts, that compassion, the empathy, and a deep seated understanding of the needs of others."

Primary and specialty palliative care utilization at a regional Burn center Oxford Academic / Journal of Burn Care & Research; by Zoe Tao, MD, Alexandra Hoffman, BS, Anna Stecher, MD, Niknam Eshraghi, MD, FACS; 4/20/24There is little research informing appropriate specialty palliative care consultation over primary palliative care practice, or the ability of the burn surgeon to perform skills such as effective goals of care discussions. ... There is bias in diverting both primary and specialty palliative care resources toward acutely ill patients and those with less immediate projected mortality may need additional attention.

Death Cafes: Where people talk mortality over tea and cake The Week UK, by Chas Newkey-Burdent; 4/18/24 Once a month, in countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, people are gathering to eat cake and talk about the typically taboo topic of death. At Death Cafes, said Emma Freud in The Times, people with a range of interests in the subject come together to discuss "the end of life experience in any of its forms,"  ... After joining a Death Cafe in Willesden, northwest London, Gaby Wine wrote in The Jewish Chronicle that it was "heart-warming" that "while not everyone agrees with one another, everyone shows great respect."

Jean Smart to star in end-of-life limited series in works at her SmartAngel EntertainmentMSN, by Nellie Andreeva; 4/21/24 Jean Smart (Hacks) is developing a limited series about the relationship between a grandmother and her grandson in the final months of her life, which the Emmy winner will star in and executive produce. ...  The poignant and funny story centers around a grandmother, played by Smart, at the end of her life and her 20-something gay grandson who reluctantly becomes her caretaker. He moves into her Catholic senior living facility, where she lives alongside a mix of traditional and hippie nuns.

Hospice nurse plays instrumental role in patient’s joy Scottsdale Progress, by Lin Sue Flood; 4/20/24 You see it at every symphony performance. People so enraptured by the music — their eyes close and their fingers dance in the air. Stuart Brown is one of those people. But as illness began to limit his mobility, the 81-year-old Scottsdale man relinquished the thought of ever attending a live concert again. That’s when his Hospice of the Valley nurse secretly reached out to the Phoenix Symphony with a request to hold a small private concert in his Scottsdale home.

Black patients with ovarian cancer had lower-quality end-of-life care, study says American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), by Brooke McCormick; 4/21/24 Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) patients with ovarian cancer (OC) received lower-quality end-of-life (EOL) care than non-Hispanic White (NHW) patients, according to a study published in Cancer Research Communications. ... Although trends and disparities in EOL care among patients with OC are well documented, the researchers noted that the role of health care access (HCA) in quality EOL care has not been well characterized; HCA is comprised of 5 distinct, interrelated care access dimensions, namely affordability, availability, accessibility, accommodation, and acceptability. 

JAMA Revisited, from May 1924: The Promise of a Longer Lifetime JAMA; 4/18/2024.Originally published May 10, 1924 | JAMA. 1924;82(19):1518-1519.Editor's Note: Yes. This article's original date is May 10, 1924; one hundred years ago, shortly after coming through the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919.Modern hygiene has been described as the reaction against the old fatalistic creed that deaths inevitably occur at a constant rate. The study of vital statistics shows that there is no “iron law of mortality.” ... The New York report states that the increase in the expectation of life has been almost entirely confined to the ages before 35 years. In the future, the health officer must, of necessity, consider steps to be taken to minimize the mortality among those of middle and advanced life. There is much to encourage man today to seek to secure a normal lifetime.

Global assessment of palliative care need: Serious health-related suffering measurement methodologyJournal of Pain and Symptom Management; by Xiaoxiao J Kwete, Afsan Bhadelia, Héctor Arreola-Ornelas, Oscar Mendez, William E Rosa, Stephen Connor, Julia Downing, Dean Jamison, David Watkins, Renzo Calderon, Jim Cleary, Joe Friedman, Liliana De Lima, Christian Ntizimira, Tania Pastrana, Pedro E Pérez-Cruz, Dingle Spence, M R Rajagopal, Valentina Vargas Enciso, Eric L Krakauer, Lukas Radbruch, Felicia Marie Knaul; 4/16/24Inequities and gaps in palliative care access are a serious impediment to health systems especially low- and middle-income countries and the accurate measurement of need across health conditions is a critical step to understanding and addressing the issue. Serious Health-related Suffering (SHS) is a novel methodology to measure the palliative care need and was originally developed by The Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief. ... The discussion encompasses opportunities for applying SHS to future policy making assessment of future research priorities particularly in light of the dearth of data from low- and middle-income countries, and sharing of directions for future work to develop SHS 3.0.

[Unique Grief Program] Stillwater Hospice offers grief hikesTimes Union Online, Fort Wayne, IN; by Stillwater Hospice; 4/18/24 Time spent in nature has been associated with improved mental health and overall well-being. Walking and movement can be helpful in processing emotions that are a part of the grieving process. Grief hikes are designed to combine these benefits through mindful movement and immersion in nature. The Peggy F. Murphy Community Grief Center in collaboration with ACRES Land Trust will be hosting Grief Hikes on the third Friday every month from May through September. ... Each hike will be held at a different ACRES location, accessible within the Stillwater Hospice service area.

Money donated to hospice organization: [$24k+ to Hospice Volunteers of Hancock County] Fox TV 22 and ABC TV 7 - Bangor, ME; by Susan Farley; 4/18/24During [November and December], Subaru of America and Stanley Subaru in Trenton donate a portion of proceeds from every new car sale to charity. Today they gave Hospice Volunteers of Hancock County a check for almost $ 25,000. "We are also growing our service with palliative care . We know that's a very underserved population really with support from volunteers going into the home providing companionship and respite. ... " said Hospice Volunteers of Hancock County Executive Director Kathy Bailargeon.

The Green Wave: Medical marijuana patient enrollment grew 610% since 2016 InvestingDaily, by John Persinos; 4/18/24 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the University of Michigan recently issued a report about a staggering surge in enrollment in state-sanctioned medical marijuana programs across the nation. The report was published last week by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of patients enrolled in medical marijuana programs in the U.S. grew “dramatically,” the report says, rising from about 678,000 in 2016 to more than 3 million in 2020. “This analysis indicates a 610% increase in patient number in the United States from 2016 to 2022,” the report states.

Season Hospice is expanding beyond Rochester KIMT 3 News, Rochester, MN; by Saral Khare; 4/18/24Earlier this April Seasons Hospice has already begun to provide at home hospice care to one patient in Owatonna. Seasons Hospice Executive Director, Kristina Wright-Peterson says it’s important to go out to rural communities and give hospice to those who need it. Wright-Peterson says residents who get hospice can focus on what truly matters.