Literature Review

Unique ethical dilemmas occur in long-term care settings: Staff need ethics resources  Medical Ethics Advisor; by Stacey Kusterbeck; online ahead of print 12/1/25 issue ... “The position paper was developed in response to concerns from our members about the ethical challenges of the changing environment in long-term services,” says Jason M. Goldman, MD, MACP, president of the American College of Physicians. ... Discharge disposition, communication issues (either among the clinical team or between clinicians and parents), behavior problems, and goals of care were the top ethical issues reported. Lack of caregiver support was another frequent unique ethical concern. Editor's Note: Your hospice is in a unique role to provide ethics trainings for end-of-life care, and thus building trust, clinical best practices, and referrals. The CMS Hospice Conditions of Participation require: Hospices That Provide Hospice Care to Residents of a SNF/NF or ICF/MR (§ 418.112) (f) Standard: Orientation and training of staff. Finally, this rule requires a hospice to assure the orientation of SNF/NF and ICF/MR staff caring for hospice patients. Staff orientation must address the following topics: hospice philosophy; hospice policies regarding patient comfort methods, pain control, and symptom management; principles about death and dying; individual responses to death; patient rights; appropriate forms; and record keeping requirements.

Meet Oscar: The cat who could predict death and comfort patients in a Rhode Island hospice doggodigest - Cats, DD Animal News; by Andrew Alpin, MSc; 11/17/25 ... Oscar, a seemingly ordinary therapy cat, possessed what appeared to be an uncanny gift, the ability to predict when patients were nearing their final moments. It is still a matter of scientific research and debate as to whether animals especially cats and dogs can predict death. ...

When health care teams run short, physician burnout rises American Medical Association (AMA); by Sara Berg, MS; 11/4/25 ... Drawing on data from the AMA Organizational Biopsy®, the study reveals that inadequate team staffing was also linked to physicians’ intentions to cut clinical hours or leave their organizations. The findings underscore how sustained workforce shortages and daily understaffing continue to affect morale and retention in medicine long after the acute phase of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Participants included 970 physicians from 15 organizations.

[Canada] Sheridan awarded over $1 million to advance research on health equity, leadership systems and unhoused care Sheridan College, Ontario, Canada; Press Release; 11/10/25 Sheridan is advancing solutions to some of today’s most pressing social challenges — in healthcare, gender equity, and homelessness — through three applied research projects supported by more than $1 million in federal funding from the College and Community Social Innovation Fund (CCSIF). ... [This funding will]  support development of innovative solutions that address pressing social issues and the needs of our community: amplifying the voices of patients receiving palliative care to improve clinical trainings, empowering women with sustainable pathways to leadership and examining the impact of mobile primary care units for the homeless and underhoused.

FSU launches first Clinical Catalyst to unite providers and researchers to solve problemsFlorida State University News; by Kathleen Haughney; 10/21/25FSU held the first ever Clinical Catalyst as part of the 2025 Discovery Days, an event to bring together local clinical providers with researchers to find evidence-based solutions to pressing challenges in health and health care... Topics included mastectomy garments, pregnancy misinformation in social media, pacemaker complications, post-surgery stroke complications, trauma referral from rural areas, ER visits, same-day triage, team-based care, Parkinson’s disease and driving, and end-of-life care.

Study examines biological causes of cancer deaths: Tumors invading large blood vessels may be to blame, UTSW researchers say UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX; by Newsroom; 10/16/25 The ultimate cause of death from cancer may not be metastatic disease, as researchers have long surmised, but an infiltration of tumors into major blood vessels that cause blood clots and multiorgan failure, a one-of-a-kind clinical study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests. These findings, published in Nature Medicine, could spur interventions that extend the lives of patients with advanced cancers. 

The Center to Advance Palliative Care and the National Kidney Foundation make the case for the integration of palliative care into kidney disease management PR Newswire, New York; by The Center to Advance Palliative Care; 10/8/25 Despite facing high rates of distressing symptoms—including fatigue, pruritus, and pain—people living with advanced kidney disease are far less likely than those with cancer to receive appropriate pain and symptom management. And fewer than 10% of older adults receiving dialysis report having had conversations about their goals of care. These are two of the many important statistics highlighted in The Case for Palliative Care in Kidney Care, a new publication from the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and the National Kidney Foundation (NKF), which emphasizes the critical need to integrate palliative care services into the treatment of patients with advanced kidney disease. 

Older COVID-19 survivors more likely to develop new-onset dementia, study finds McKnights Long-Term Care News; by Foster Stubbs; 10/3/25 Adults 50 years and older who survived COVID-19 had higher chances of developing new-onset dementia (NOD) compared to those who were not infected, according to an October study published in npj Dementia. Researchers analyzed data from 54,757 participants aged 50 years and older obtained from the UK Biobank. The sample included 16,017 participants with COVID-19 and 38,740 non-COVID participants. The COVID-19 group consisted of participants who were infected between Jan. 31, 2020 and Feb. 28, 2021, and the median observation period was about two years. 

'Traffic light care model will help generations'BBC News, West Midlands, England; by Chloe Hughes; 10/6/25 A man with a neuromuscular condition has said that a model of care developed in Shropshire to help patients like him will benefit future generations. ... Part of his care has involved using the Oswestry model developed by Prof Tracey Willis from the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (RJAH) and her husband, Prof Derek Willis, Severn Hospice's medical director. It uses a "traffic light system" to help neuromuscular teams identify key stages in a patient's journey, in which hospice involvement would improve their quality of life. ... Patients are identified as green, amber or red.

Long COVID hitting doctors and nurses hard Medscape; by David Brzostowkicki; 9/3/25 Jeffrey Siegelman, MD, contracted COVID-19 in August 2020 and, 3 months later, published a paper online in JAMA about his experiences. Today, he’s still dealing with the symptoms, as one of many healthcare providers who have long COVID. He said his experience highlights the impact of long COVID on hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, by some estimates, who have been on the frontlines fighting the pandemic from the beginning. “I reflect on that paper from JAMA, and I thought that 3 months was a long time,” said Siegelman, associate professor of emergency medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine and a practicing emergency room doctor in Atlanta. “And here I am, 5 years later, and I still have symptoms. I think that’s the case for a lot of patients with long COVID, that it just keeps getting longer.”

Living with dementia: To improve lives, we need to change how we think and talk about this experience in aging societies EurekAlert! - AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science); peer reviewed publication by The Hastings Center; 9/24/25 To experience or even contemplate dementia raises some of the most profound questions: What does it mean to be a person? How does someone find meaning in life while facing progressive neurological deterioration? ... To improve the lives of our fellow citizens who are living with dementia or providing dementia care, all of us need to pay attention to how we imagine and talk about these interwoven and increasingly common experiences, concludes Living with Dementia: Learning from Cultural Narratives in Aging Societies, a special report published by The Hastings Center for Bioethics. This report responds to calls from health care and social service practitioners for new ways to depict and talk about dementia, a collective term for Alzheimer disease and related dementias. Editor's Note: Click here for free access to multiple articles in this crucial report, such as

Driving innovation: Healthsperien launches Center for Health Research, Policy & Strategy led by seasoned experts  PR Newswire, Washginton, DC; by Healthsperien; 9/23/25 Healthsperien announces the official launch of its Center for Health Research, Policy & Strategy, marking the third in a series of new Centers of Expertise designed to provide clients with specialized, high-quality services and reinforce Healthsperien as a comprehensive partner and integrated hub for health policy, government relations, and research strategies. ... The Center will be led by Dianne Munevar, Partner, who joins Healthsperien after serving as Vice President of Health Care Strategy at NORC at the University of Chicago. She will lead a seasoned team of 5 research, policy, and strategy experts, who also come from NORC at the University of Chicago, ...

Study provides new insight into loneliness among home care recipients McKnights Home Care; by Paul Katz, MD and Barbara Resnick, PhD; 9/22/25 ... A team of international Investigators, led by researchers at the University of Waterloo, recently reported on the link between loneliness and mortality among home care recipients in Canada, Finland and New Zealand. The study can be found in the July issue of the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association (Vol 26 (7) 105687 July 2025). ... Home care recipients may be more prone to loneliness, given mobility and sensory problems that limit engagement in the community.  ... Interestingly, investigators noted that individuals with less informal care had the highest rates of loneliness. An explanation may be that those with less complex health needs requiring  less support from family members may lead to more social isolation.