Literature Review

The balancing act: how caregivers navigate the stress of work, family, and caring for a loved one Delaware Live; by Staff Writer; 9/16/26 ... This article — the sixth in a continuing series on the caregiver’s experience — explores practical strategies for balancing competing pressures while protecting your own well-being. Insights from national research and guidance from Delaware Hospice, Oasis Senior Care (a leading consultant for families), and Easterseals Delaware & Maryland’s Eastern Shore underscore a central message: you don’t have to do this alone, and thriving — not just surviving — is possible.

Phoenix Home Care & Hospice expands Technology Assisted Waiver Services to Southeast Kansas The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO; Press Release; 9/15/26 Phoenix Home Care & Hospice has expanded its Technology Assisted Waiver services into six Southeast Kansas counties: Allen, Bourbon, Cherokee, Crawford, Labette and Neosho. ... Phoenix's Technology Assisted Waiver nurses provide individualized care based on each child's medical needs and plan of care. Services may include ventilator management, tracheostomy care, G-tube feedings, medication administration and management, IV therapy, total parenteral nutrition, routine blood draws and other skilled nursing services.

How nurses fit into the modern healthcare team World Business Outlook; blog; 9/15/26 Care is rarely delivered by one expert acting alone. It is built through constant coordination, quick decisions, and a steady flow of information between professionals. In that shared space, nurses often become the people who connect everyone else. 

Enhancing quality of life for terminally ill veterans during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond Medscape | Federal Practitioner; by Denise Kresevic, PhD, RN, APN-BC, Marilyn Swanson, DNP, RN, FNP-C, Muralidhar Pallaki, MD, Bridgette Wasil, MSN, RN CHPN, Rosalie Diaz, PsyD, and Christopher J. Burant, PhD; 9/14/26 Background: Honoring individualized preferences for end-of-life interventions for veterans is a priority for families and caregivers. Medications used to treat symptoms such as pain, anxiety, and delirium may also result in sedation, making it difficult to balance comfort while minimizing sedation. ... Conclusions: The See Me, Hear Me, Comfort Me model may help hospice teams better align end-of-life care with individual preferences. ...

The dark side of full patient autonomy Medscape; by Lisa O'Mary; 9/14/26 Paternalism is out. Shared decision-making is in. But some communication and ethics experts say medicine is veering far too much toward full patient autonomy. A new review in the journal Health Communication found that clear delivery, active listening, and empathy were associated with patient trust. Obvious? Probably. But here’s the twist: The authors also found that paternalistic styles didn’t always harm trust — and even aided shared decision-making in some situations, particularly in contexts such as emergency care, serious illness, and end-of-life decisions.

What we get wrong about death, according to end-of-life workers HuffPost; by Monica Torres; 9/12/26 ... I had conversations with palliative and hospice care physicians, nurses and social workers that comforted me, surprised me and challenged my own assumptions about death. Maybe they will for you, too. Here are some of the biggest misunderstandings they shared with me about death and what the reality actually is:

Sandwich generation caregiver shares how she cares for her mom with Alzheimer’s at home KVVU-TV Fox 5, Las Vegas, NV; by LeAnne Gendreau and Sondra 'Sam' Cradduck; 9/10/26 Ty Lewis, a dementia practitioner, takes care of her mother, Gertrude, who is in the end stages of Alzheimer’s while raising her children. She has been sharing her journey online with a community of more than 120,000 people online. Lewis, a member of the “sandwich generation,” sat down with Aging Untold expert and gerontologist Sam Cradduck to talk about what it takes to care for two generations and what the online community means to her family. 

Beyond the bottle: a whole person approach to pain management for veterans enrolled in inpatient hospice Medscape; by Tracy Shamas, APRN, MSN, ACHPN, Andrea Ruskin, MD, HEC-C, and Alexandra Laffer, PhD; 9/9/26 Background: ... Veterans Affairs inpatient hospice units are uniquely positioned to implement non-pharmacological pain interventions due to longer lengths of stay and broader resources compared to Medicare GIP-regulated settings. This quality improvement project aims to support the uptake and utilization of non-pharmacological pain management interventions for veterans receiving inpatient hospice care. ... Conclusions: Initial findings show that veterans with pain at end-of-life express interest in holistic non-pharmacological options, and integrating these approaches is feasible within inpatient hospice care. ... 

Grieving children need more than our sympathy. They need a place to belong Rhode Island Current; by Deanna Upchurch; 9/8/26 Children who lose a close family member grieve differently than adults, and their grief changes as they grow. A loss experienced at 8 can take on an entirely different meaning at 12, 16 or 25. A child can be deeply sad and still want to swim, make art, play games and laugh with friends. HopeHealth makes room for all of it at Camp BraveHeart. This summer, 100 grieving children and teens attended our day camp at Camp Hoffman in South Kingstown with another 75 experiencing the camp offered in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. ... According to the 2026 Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, 1 in 11 children in the United States —- about 6.6 million —- will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18.

Central Illinois nursing home fined $25K by state after resident's death Pekin Daily Times, Perioa, IL; by Zach Roth; 9/6/26 A Canton nursing home was fined $25,000 after a resident died last year after being taken off medication that was prescribed to prevent blood clots. ... On March 31, 2025, a verbal order was given to stop providing Xarelto because the woman began hospice care one month prior. ... The care plan noted that she had a history of strokes and that medication needed to be provided as ordered by her doctor. ... The hospice's owner said that the power of attorney had contacted them after the woman had died asking about the medication situation, noting that they hadn't seen anything to show that her Xarelto had been discontinued. The hospice owner also said that they hadn't received an order from a hospice physician or nurse to discontinue it. Editor's Note: Details are more complex than space allows in the short summary above. A verbal order to stop a medication, without a documented physician directive or clear communications with the family, is a quiet risk hiding in plain sight at hospice transitions — one that can hasten death rather than ease it. Deprescribing has its place in end-of-life care, but only through structured, physician-ordered, shared decision-making. Does your hospice's process protect against this, or could it happen to one of your patients tomorrow? 

Nearly half of veterans with stage IV cancer die without hospice: a national VHA analysis of 45,397 decedents Medscape; by Sasmith Menakuru, MD; Alexander Quattlebaum, MD; Chance Bloomer, MD; Lara Khoury, MD; Abdulsabur Sanni, MD; Michael Goodman, MD; 9/3/26  Results: Of 45,937 veterans, 20,338 ... had no hospice admission or consultation.  ... Conclusions: Hospice access for veterans with Stage IV cancer deteriorated during COVID-19 and shows no meaningful recovery; ... These findings identify Stage IV hospice access as an underrecognized national VHA quality priority warranting Stage IV—triggered automated palliative care consultation, embedded outpatient palliative care in oncology clinics, standardized referral protocols at documented progression, and veteran/family-facing hospice education. This analysis establishes a statistically rigorous national baseline for benchmarking interventions–and a call to action for the VHA oncology community to restore hospice as a core element of veteran-centered end-of-life care.

Priorities for advancing palliative care for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: a consensus report from a palliative care for ALS working group in the United States Muscle & Nerve; by Kara E. Bischoff, Yaowaree L. Leavell, Jessica M. Besbris, Christi Lero, Kelsey Noble, Astrid Grouls, Jerome Kurent, Benzi M. Kluger, Steven Z. Pantilat, Ambereen K. Mehta, on behalf of the International Neuropalliative Care Society's Palliative Care for ALS Working Group; 8/31/2026 The Palliative Care for ALS Working Group was formed within the International Neuropalliative Care Society, consisting of interprofessional ALS and palliative care clinicians, researchers, advocates, and patients and care partner representatives who are committed to improving palliative care for people living with ALS. The group engaged in a strategic planning process to determine what is needed to advance palliative care for people with ALS over the next 3–5 years. This report outlines the core recommendations from that strategic planning process. Recommendations are divided into five sections: (1) clinician education, (2) clinical service expansion, (3) research, (4) public awareness, and (5) policy change. Editor's Note: ALS is an especially devastating, demanding disease for patients, caregivers and families, for your clinical staff and volunteers. What disease-specific education and resources do you provide? How many ALS patients have your organization served in "x" years? Do you partner in any way with your regional ALS association? For non-clinical leaders, an important, easy distinction for you to remember the clinical, deeply personal differences between ALS versus ALZ: 

The death I feared, and the peace I found Gillette News Record; by Michelle Mathal; 8/29/26 ... From the dreaded day my brother was diagnosed, to two years later when my parents tragically died in a car accident and I surfaced from the glacial water knowing I had to live to be his caregiver, to grieve alone. ... We enrolled in hospice earlier than most because Tomas was falling and losing movement in his left hand. ... No one told me that caring for a dying person would be so intimate. When I dressed him in the morning, I realized we had the same hands and feet, big enough that we should’ve been a foot taller. No one told me about the deep trust between caregiver and patient. It is a sacred pact not bound by blood, but an understanding that we would be seen at our most vulnerable and sensitive times, but not judge each other for these moments, but respect one another despite them.