Literature Review

How palliative services can smooth over transitions of care Hospice News; by Kevin Ryan; 12/17/25 Transitions of care are crucial moments for patients, often fraught with risks, but palliative care providers can help ensure that the changes go more smoothly. One way of doing this is through transitional care. Transitional care is a dynamic and highly personalized type of care that provides care services to assist patients as they move between different levels of health care. This may include a patient transitioning from a hospital setting to another care facility, or to their home. Transitional care helps bridge service gaps and enhances communication as patients move between health care settings, according to Dr. Diane Meier, founder of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC). 

[Europe] Muslims often don’t trust palliative care. A new charity aims to change that  Hyphen; by Weronika Stryzyzynska; 12/15/25 Al-Amal, founded by a doctor and a chaplain, is informed by the Muslim view of a good death — something they say is lacking in mainstream care. A new charity to support Muslims navigating palliative care is preparing to launch after Ramadan. As well as providing an emotional support telephone line, Al-Amal will also offer practical advice on accessing culturally and religiously appropriate care.  The Muslim view of what a good death looks like is informed by values beyond the medical. … This can affect the way Muslim patients include their families in the decision-making process or their approach to pain management.

Palliative care interventions for caregivers of people with advanced dementia: A meta-analysis Sigma Global Nursing Excellence - Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing; by Ita Daryanti Saragih, Ira Suarilah, Hsun-Kuei Ko, Ice Septriani Saragih, Bih-O Lee; 12/11/25 Conclusion: Palliative care interventions were successful in reducing conflict in decision-making of caregivers of people with advanced dementia. ... Linking Evidence to Action: Future palliative care interventions for caregivers of advanced dementia patients should focus on developing the contents of palliative care materials based on evidence-based evaluations and explore strategies to improve engagement between patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals.

[Canada] Rethinking palliative care through three institutional ethnographic stories of people living with homelessness and life-limiting illnessINQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, & Financing; by Courtney R. Petruik, Katrina Milaney; 11/25Fifteen to thirty percent of Canadians have access to palliative care, with even fewer access opportunities for people with experiences of homelessness. Part of a larger study, this paper examines how health and social systems shape the need for community-based palliative and end-of-life care, using 3 stories from clients of the Community Allied Mobile Palliative Partnership (CAMPP). Findings reveal systemic demands like renewing insurance for medical equipment, restrictive housing rules, and standardized hospital protocols that overwhelm capacities of many people with experiences of homelessness. Community-based palliative teams like CAMPP fill critical gaps in mainstream services by tailoring care to complex social realities.

The ethical challenge of negative compassion: How excessive empathy in end-of-life care affects decision-making and patient autonomy Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing; by Victoria Pérez-Rugosa, Gina Lladó-Jordan, Pablo de Lorena-Quintal, Esther Domínguez-Valdés, Antonia Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Carmen Sarabia-Cobo; 12/11/25 Online ahead of print ... 3 key themes emerged: decision paralysis and emotional overload, conflicts between personal beliefs and professional responsibilities, and institutional barriers to ethical practice. Findings reveal that excessive emotional involvement can hinder the implementation of patients' documented wishes, potentially compromising patient autonomy and increasing caregiver distress. The study highlights the need for institutional policies that support emotional resilience, structured debriefing, and ethics training. ... These insights are highly relevant for palliative nursing practice, offering guidance for supporting staff and upholding patient-centered care in end-of-life settings.

Palliative care improves outcomes in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD), with Crawford Strunk, MD Consultant Live; by Crawford Strunk, MD; 12/8/25 Incorporating a palliative care team into a comprehensive sickle cell disease (SCD) care center substantially reduced inpatient length of stay and improved outpatient pain management, according to a recent study. ...  Additionally, the study authors noted plans to continue examining the efficacy of palliative care regarding cost savings and broader applicability outside of SCD patients.

"Being ill defines your daily life": Social wellbeing of patients residing at home facing an incurable illness and their primary family caregivers BMC Palliative Care; by Trudy Schutter, Ian Koper, Marieke Groot, Kris Vissers, Jeroen Hasselaar; 11/28/25 Online ahead of print This study demonstrates that meaningful relationships, acknowledgement of one's situation and the ability to determine one's own level of involvement in society are essential for the social wellbeing of patients and family caregivers confronted with incurable illness. ... Furthermore, the quality of communication and relationships with healthcare providers, employers, and institutions, along with the prevailing societal attitudes towards incurable illness, caregiving, death, and dying, is of considerable significance and should be given careful attention.

5.2 consultation-Liaison perspectivesJournal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry; by Julia A. Kearney;10/25Parents suffer loss and anticipatory grief, struggle with complex medical decision-making, and bear the primary burden of talking to their children about illness, death, and loss. Clinical intervention can: 1) improve communication around child prognosis and medical decision-making; 2) support parents in having open conversations with their children; and 3) directly assess and address parent mental health. Parents and caregivers appreciate resources to address their mental health in pediatric settings, need expertise from clinicians experienced in pediatric illness and palliative care, and need programs to overcome barriers such as parents’ unwillingness or inability to leave their child and the unpredictability of the child’s illness. While nothing can eliminate the suffering and grief of families facing a child’s terminal illness, clinicians can increase hope by helping enhance meaning, connection, trust, and love while reducing guilt and regret.  

[Norway] Intensive care of the very old - questioning the relationship between illness severity and the moral imperative to deliver life-saving carePhilosophy, Ethics, & Humanities in Medicine; by Gabriele Leonie Schwarz; 10/25Intensive care provision to very old patients is rapidly growing owing to demographic changes and increasing treatment intensity. However, intensive care carries only questionable benefit for the oldest patients, and many of them die after prolonged organ support. Departing from a clinical perspective, this study aims to explore the drivers for the expansion of critical care in advanced age, despite widespread awareness of its potential harms to patients, their families, healthcare professionals, and society. 

Letters without limits: Jesse Tetterton The Johns Hopkins News-Letter; by Omkar Katkade; 11/22/25 Letters Without Limits, founded by students at Johns Hopkins and Brown University, connects volunteers with palliative care and hospice patients to co-create “Legacy Letters.” These letters capture memories, values and lessons that patients wish to share, preserving stories that might otherwise be lost. By honoring these voices and preserving legacies, Letters Without Limits hopes to affirm the central role of humanism in medicine, reminding us that every patient is more than their illness and that their voices deserve to be heard.

How much power should we give AI in end-of-life decisions? Forbes; by Michael L. Millenson; 11/20/25 Could an artificial intelligence algorithm used for end-of-life care decisions predict better than your loved ones whether you’d want doctors to restart your heart if it stops unexpectedly? Or if you have a serious illness, should AI predictions about your overall survival odds be used to prod you to make your wishes clear before there’s a medical emergency? Ready or not, AI predictions are quietly set to become part of care decisions at the end of life. However, what role they’ll play in relation to human intelligence and values, and whether there can be a “moral” AI that takes those into account, remain wide-open questions. 

Enhancing palliative care integration in the Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care Unit: A multidisciplinary quality improvement projectAmerican Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; by Crystal Hope Bennett Schiano; 10/25The rate of unmet palliative care (PC) needs is high in critical care areas, especially in the surgical patient population, where PC involvement is notoriously late in the patient’s clinical progression. This quality improvement project aimed to evaluate the ability of education, workflow delineation, and an evidence-based assessment tool to improve the integration of PC in a cardiac surgical intensive care unit (TICU). The intervention included education, workflow delineation, and an evidence-based frailty assessment (FA) implementation. The outcomes of this project were similar to those of the existing literature, further revealing that ICUs are challenging care settings in which to connect patients with PC for the first time. Future studies on the effects of FA in the cardiac surgical patient population are warranted to find the most appropriate settings for assessment and associated interventions based on identifying a patient’s frailty.