Literature Review

Pediatric Palliative Care is essential to person-centered quality care for children with serious illnessAAHPM Spring Quarterly; by Larry Beresford; 6/27/24It has often been said that children are not little adults and should not be treated as little adults when it comes to their medical care or to the roles played in that care by palliative care and hospice teams. But what should that truism convey to members of AAHPM? How do hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) professionals ensure that children with serious, incurable, or life-threatening illnesses are managed with due consideration of their differences and distinct needs? What do adult palliative care professionals need to know—and contribute to ensuring that these children get the age-appropriate support they need for the duration of their illness?Publisher's Note: Membership may be required to access this article, or perhaps waiting until it is archived.

If I had my way, I'd remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead. - Roald Dahl

Evaluating palliative care impact: Insights from Tennessee Oncology's OCM participation The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC); by Mary Caffrey and Pearl Steinzor; 6/27/24 A study finds limited changes in hospice utilization, highlighting challenges in real-world implementation. In an interview at the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, Ravi Parikh, MD, MPP, assistant professor of medicine and health policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, discussed the outcomes of a palliative care study at Tennessee Oncology, providing insights into the challenges and limitations of evaluating hospice utilization and quality-of-life improvements in the real-world setting. 

Anxiety in late life and serious illness: A podcast with Alex Gamble and Brianna WilliamsonGeriPal [podcast]; by Eric Widera, Alex Smith, Alex Gamble, Brianna Williamson; 6/27/24“Anxiety is a lot like a toddler. It never stops talking, tells you you’re wrong about everything, and wakes you up at 3 a.m.” I’m not sure who wrote this quote, but it feels right to me. We’ve all had anxiety, and probably all recognize that anxiety can be a force of action or growth but can also spiral to quickly take over our lives and our sleep. How, though, do we navigate anxiety and help our patients who may end up in the anxiety spiral that becomes so hard to get out of? On today’s podcast, we’ve invited Alex Gamble and Brianna Williamson to talk to us about anxiety. Alex is a triple-boarded (palliative care, internal medicine, and psychiatry) assistant professor of medicine at Stanford. Brianna is one of UCSF’s palliative care fellows who just completed her psychiatry residency.

Story Rounds inspires real talk by doctors about their toughest work Standford Medicine - SCOPE Beyond the Headlines; by Mark Conley; 6/27/24 Jay Shah, MD, took a deep breath as he stood on the Berg Hall stage and looked out across the crowd. It was made up of 150 of his Stanford Medicine peers, some of them longtime mentors and collaborators. ... Shah had been chosen to lead off the latest rendition of Story Rounds, the WellMD and WellPhD and the Medical Humanities and Arts Program (MedMuse) co-sponsored live storytelling program -- a safe place for MDs, clinical students and residents to share with their colleagues. ... Shah's tale was an impassioned 13-minute story of metamorphosis: Of going from a doctor determined to trudge forward without self-reflection, watching it destroy his marriage and spiral his mental health, to one who recognized the harm in not processing the difficult situations and emotions that come with the job -- such as the pain, guilt and loneliness of losing a patient and feeling like it was all his fault. His was the first of five stories that evening, delivered in a personal storytelling format inspired by Public Radio Exchange's podcast The Moth. It encapsulated a growing movement toward doctors talking openly about burnout, stress and mental health -- and trying to support one another, whether they're a wide-eyed first-year resident or a veteran health care leader like Shah.

Silverstone Health expands care continuum beyond hospice, sees skyrocketing census growth Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 6/19/24 Dallas-based Silverstone Health has expanded its continuum of home-based services while growing its total daily census from 17 patients to 2,000. Silverstone came on the scene in 2020 as a standalone hospice after CEO Alfonso Montiel’s purchase and rebranding of Comfort Care Hospice in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. Since then, the company has built a palliative care service and is developing a personal care business. In the interim, Silverstone also acquired two small home health agencies for undisclosed amounts, as well as a physician group, according to Montiel. 

Getting muddy for Center for Hospice Care LaporteCounty.life; by Center for Hospice Care, Valpraiso, IN; 6/24/24The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend the South Bend Sod Busters hosted their annual mud bog. For years a portion of the proceeds from this event have benefitted Center for Hospice Care. One of the first times Red Fisher attended the event as the events manager for Hospice Foundation, he told the organizers, "When you go over $100,000 total for this event, I will go down the bog in a white tuxedo!" A couple of years ago, they surpassed that mark – and this year Red kept his word. Thanks to our friends at Louie's Tux Shop, Red got into one of the vehicles and went down the bog – not once, but twice – while wearing a stylish white tux!Editor's Note: Calling all leaders, what fun, fundraising challenges might you offer?

Rendever and Lenovo collaborate to bring virtual reality experiences to Carolina Caring seniors Fox 8, Boston, MA; by Rendever; 6/19/24 Rendever, the Boston-based company pioneering the future of aging through virtual reality (VR), announces the deployment of its virtual reality platform with Lenovo to Carolina Caring patients. The rollout allows clinicians and caregivers to bring expansive, once-in-a-lifetime VR experiences to older patients whose worlds have become limited. Over the last year, Rendever and Lenovo combined their products into a joint solution that senior living providers can easily adopt to improve the quality of life for older adults through positive shared experiences. Rendever’s award-winning virtual reality solution delivered on Lenovo’s ThinkReality VRX headset provides an all-in-one standalone solution that meets the evolving needs of enterprises with modern virtual reality with six degrees of freedom, full color, and high-resolution experiences. Rendever is deployed in over 700 communities nationwide and looks to further expand with the addition of Carolina Caring in collaboration with Lenovo. 

Dementia decisions: Making tough choices about hospice, palliative care Being Patient; by Katy Koop; 6/25/24 In the later stages of Alzheimer's, palliative and hospice care can be necessary. But how do you find a facility designed for dementia patients? ... Dr. Maribeth Gallagher, director of Arizona’s Hospice of the Valley dementia program, joins Being Patient video reporter Mark Niu to discuss how to make these difficult decisions and what makes a palliative or hospice care program “dementia-capable.” Gallagher’s work directing the Hospice of the Valley’s dementia program has received national and international awards for its innovative approaches. Her focus on dementia care was initially inspired by her personal experiences as a family caregiver, sharing the journey with her loved one from diagnosis to death. [Click on the title's link for the full conversation, in both audio and text.]

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Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. ~Soren Kierkegaard

Coping and end-of-life decision-making in ALS: A qualitative interview study PLoS One, University of Auckland, New Zealand; by Olga Wenzel, Anke Erdmann, Gerald Neitzke, and Irene Hirschberg; 6/26/24 How do people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (PALS) deal with their diagnosis and engage in end-of-life decision-making? What informational or supportive needs do they have for counselling about life-sustaining treatment and end-of-life care? Which correlating conditions and influences relate to these needs and how do they connect to the wish to die or wish to live? ... We identified the coping strategies ‘avoid thinking about end-of-life’ and its counterpart, ‘planning ahead to be well-prepared,’ and differentiated the latter into the patterns ‘withdrawing from life and taking precautions against life-prolongation’ and ‘searching for a new meaning in life and preparing for life-sustaining treatment’.  ... These strategies may vary over time, resulting in different support needs. Our findings signify that deep insight is needed into PALS‘ coping processes to understand their decision-making about life-sustaining treatment. Healthcare professionals should be sensitive to illness experiences beyond medical aspects and foster coping as a biographical process to better support people with ALS.Editor's Note: Click on the title to access the full text of this insightful, relevant research. Hospice and palliative educators, use this to strengthen your disease-specific resources and training about care for persons with ALS.

A palliative care curriculum may promote resident self-reflection and address moral injury The Journal of Surgical Research; by Shruti Koti, Lyudmyla Demyan, Danielle Deperalta, Sophia Tam, Gary Deutsch; 6/22/24 online ahead of print Introduction: There is a lack of formal palliative care education for surgical trainees, and the demanding nature of surgical training and exposure to challenging clinical scenarios can contribute to moral injury. We developed a palliative care curriculum to promote self-reflection, aiming to address moral injury in residents.Conclusions: The described palliative care curriculum accomplishes several goals as follows: it educates residents on palliative care topics, teaches communication tools, encourages self-reflection, and provides space for building peer relationships. The ease of implementation makes this curriculum applicable across various types of institutions, offering the potential to positively impact surgical training on a national scale.