Literature Review

Q&A: Why are more Americans under 50 years of age dying of colorectal cancer? Medscape; by Keith Mulvihill; 2/10/26 First, the good news: Fewer Americans younger than 50 years are dying from cancer vs just a decade ago — reflecting progress in prevention, early detection, and treatment. There is, however, one big exception. Colorectal cancer mortality has been steadily inching up, and the disease now stands as the leading cause of cancer death in this age group, up from the fifth-leading in the early 1990s. ... The outlier is colorectal cancer, where mortality has been rising by about 1% per year since 2005. And it’s a pattern seen in both men and women. ... [The researchers are asked,] "Can you offer some possible reasons for the declining mortality in most of the cancers you studied?" 

Bridging the differences in care for grieving people: Worden’s differentiation between grief counseling and grief therapy Death Studies; by Mark D. de St. Aubin and William G. Hoy; 2/14/26 Worden’s (Citation1982, Citation2018) landmark textbook on caring for bereaved individuals differentiated grief counseling from grief therapy, defining the former as the efforts of both professional and lay caregivers to support bereaved people in normal grief. Grief therapy, he posited, is the more structured intervention offered by credentialed caregivers to support individuals coping with a more complicated experience of mourning. In this article, the authors explain Worden’s perspective, describe his types of complicated mourning for which grief therapy might be warranted, and offer clinical application to the approaches Worden takes.

The Alliance and the Research Institute for Home Care release 2025 Hospice Chartbook National Alliance for Care at Home, Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC; Press Release; 2/19/26 The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) and The Research Institute for Home Care (the Institute) are excited to announce the release of the 2025 Hospice Chartbook. Highlighting the vital role that hospice plays in caring for an aging demographic, the Chartbook provides a look at the patients being served in hospice, who they are demographically and clinically, and more.  Now in its second year, the 2025 Hospice Chartbook, co-sponsored by the Alliance, provides an overview of national patient and workforce data with an emphasis on state-specific information and trends, including key data on hospice patients and providers, Medicare spending on hospice, and more. 

How to plan for a ‘good death,’ according to a VCU researcher VCU News, Virginia Commonwealth University; by Madeline Reinsel; 2/16/26 People talk a lot more about death than dying. That’s according to Yifan Lou, Ph.D., a Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work assistant professor who studies how expectations around death and end-of-life care differ across cultures. ... “My job is really trying to understand different populations and then help design a policy and health care system that can support their value of the good death.” Planning for a good death requires patients and families to make decisions around hospice care, pain management, quality of life, financial affairs and long-term care, ideally alongside a social worker.

Psychosocial oncology: The Omega Project Taylor & Francis | Death Studies; by Matthew Loscalzo and Linda A. Klein; 2/14/26This article reports on an interview with J. William Worden that focuses initially on the Omega Project (1968–1986) that studied end-of-life care. Worden explains the four phases of the project with specific populations, goals, and key concepts that emerged. The discussion then shifts to the development of psychosocial oncology and palliative care. Finally, Worden offers some thoughts on the development of the hospice movement in the United States, the role of religion in coping with mortality, coping with personal loss, and his advice to new medical or graduate students just starting out.

Positive experiences of seriously ill lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons and their partners with healthcare providers: Project Respect American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; by Cathy Berkman, PhD, MSW, Gary L. Stein, JD, MSW, Noelle Marie Javier, MD, Kimberly D. Acquaviva, PhD, MSW, David Godfrey, JD, Sean O’Mahony, MD, Shail Maingi, MD, Carey Candrian, PhD, Christian González-Rivera, MUP, Imani Woody, PhD, and William E. Rosa, PhD; 1/24/26 Results: There were numerous reports of respectful, affirming, and competent care, including: healthcare providers who were open about discussing a respondent’s LGBTQ+ identity and their specific health concerns; intake and assessment forms that included pre-specified choices for sexual orientations and gender identities; using correct names, pronouns, and gender; healthcare providers who identified as LGBTQ+ or signaled being an ally; and treating spouses, partners, and widows respectfully and including them in decision-making.

Can AI hear when patients are ready for palliative care? Researchers use AI to analyze patient phone calls for vocal cues predicting palliative care acceptance Penn LDI - Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics; by Hoag Levins; 2/24/26 A new study suggests artificial intelligence (AI) may help clinicians identify which seriously ill patients are ready for palliative care — by analyzing the energy, pitch, and other subtle vocal cues in recorded group phone conversations among patients, caregivers, and health care providers. The new work by a team led by LDI Senior Fellow and Penn Nursing School Assistant Professor Jiyoun Song, PhD, APRN, is the first to use speech processing to identify palliative care preferences during discussions and decision-making in managed long-term care (MLTC), a type of Medicaid-managed care for community-dwelling patients that need home and community-based services.

Drivers of disease-specific end-of-life disparities Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 1/30/26 ... Racial and ethnic disparities persist among underserved patient populations with dementia, who have a stronger likelihood of dying without awareness or access to hospice, recent research has found. Clinicians may play a vital role in moving the needle forward. Nearly 260, 000 Black, Hispanic and white Medicare decedents with dementia-related conditions were recently examined in a new study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Forum.  Editor's Note: We posted this study in our Saturday Research newsletter, 12/27/25, End-of-life care for older adults with dementia by race and ethnicity and physicians’ role. This article gives more practical descriptions and applications for its results.

The role of specialty palliative care in cancer surgery: Rebecca Aslakson & Myrick ShinallGeriPal podcast; by Eric Widera, Alex Smith, Rebecca Aslakson, Myrick Shinall; 1/29/26Recent randomized controlled trials have shown that routine perioperative palliative care does not improve outcomes for patients undergoing curative-intent cancer surgery. No, that wasn’t a typo. Regardless of how the data were analyzed, the findings remained consistent: perioperative palliative care DID NOT improve outcomes in the only two randomized controlled trials conducted in this area—the SCOPE and PERIOP-PC trials... One key takeaway for me from this discussion was the idea that patients undergoing curative-intent surgery might simply be too early in their cancer trajectory to derive meaningful benefits from palliative care, and maybe the focus should be more on geriatrics. I especially appreciated the closing discussion about the future of research in this area: if routine perioperative palliative care doesn’t improve outcomes, what should the next generation of studies focus on?

Sound of silence: Training physicians to avoid interrupting the diagnosis Medscape; by Donavyn Coffey; 1/21/26 When Anthony Back, MD, a palliative care specialist at the University of Washington in Seattle, takes medical trainees on his rounds, they often come out of the exam room with the same observation: “You didn’t say anything.” Back is among a growing number of physicians who practices silence with his patients, intentionally giving them more time to share and process before he chimes in, and teaching the next generation of doctors to do the same.  ... Emerging evidence and educator experience suggest that silence is not an absence of skill but a deliberate diagnostic and relational tool.

[Spain] Why primary care is central to better end-of-life care Medscape; by Eva Farina; 1/9/26 Primary care professionals should play a proactive role in caring for patients at the end of life, according to family medicine specialists at the National Congress of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC) held in Madrid, Spain. ... According to the SUPPORT study, dying in a hospital is often associated with avoidable suffering, excessive use of technology, limited communication, and insufficient care planning. 

Physicians’ end-of-life choices: a surprising study Medpage Today's KevinMD.com; by M. Bennet Broner, PhD; 1/3/26 In July, I wrote about the importance of end-of-life planning (EOL). Shortly after, I read a study that examined physicians’ EOL plans with advanced cancer and Alzheimer’s disease (stage unspecified). The study encompassed nations with different forms of aid in dying, from the U.S., where a terminal coma is the only option most states allow, to Belgium, where physician-assisted dying (PAD) and euthanasia are available. Although the term suicide has been used for PAD, it is incorrect, as no one who chooses these options desires to die; they just want a choice in how and when they do so. ... One would assume, as the researchers did, that physicians would utilize all available medical technology. However, they found that end-of-life choices were nuanced decisions. ...