Advance Care Planning for people with dementia: recognising moral dilemmas faced by physicians

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In his debut blog, Justin Chan appraises a meta-review on the moral barriers and facilitators that physicians encounter when talking about Advance Care Planning for people with dementia.

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Weekly singing in choir may improve the mental health of cancer carers

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Katherine Tallent writes her debut blog on a recent longitudinal controlled study exploring psychosocial singing interventions for the mental health and well-being of family carers of patients with cancer.

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Advance care planning in dementia nursing homes with family carers

Josie Dixon considers a paired-cluster randomised controlled trial of an advance care planning intervention, called the Family Carer Decision Support (FCDS) intervention, undertaken by Kevin Brazil and colleagues (2018) in dementia nursing homes.

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Antipsychotics for delirium in palliative care: new RCT suggests non-drug alternatives are needed

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Samei Huda highlights a recent RCT of antipsychotics (risperidone and haloperidol) versus placebo for symptoms of delirium in palliative care, which suggests we need non-drug alternatives for this group of patients.

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End-of-life care for people with learning disabilities. Views of service-users and family carers

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People with learning disabilities are living longer than ever before, so more people are likely to need palliative care services and end-of-life care.

Here, Fawn Harrad looks at a study, which set out to listen specifically to the views of people with a learning disability and family carers in receipt of palliative care services.

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Nuffield Trust offers an insight into the costs of end of life care

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This report from the Nuffield Trust is an important addition to the literature base on end of life care as it attempts to quantify the costs involved in end of life care, from the perspectives of the various services involved.  Although there are limitations to the cost estimates, which are explicitly acknowledged, the findings will [read the full story…]

Dementia through the eyes of a carer: What would you want for your relative?

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Josephine Neale summarises a recent review of qualitative evidence that finds carers’ views are mixed and lie on a spectrum of acceptance of their relative as actively dying with dementia.

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Combination of clinical and managerial expertise transform local healthcare, case studies demonstrate

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This collection of case studies is aimed at all people involved in the development and delivery of quality health services, in particular, commissioners, local authorities, voluntary sectors, and health professionals in all settings, including primary and secondary care. Some of the CCGs are also working with organisations from the retail sector, for example John Lewis. [read the full story…]

“Commissioners should ensure sustained and effective delivery of children’s palliative care” says guide

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Clinical Commissioning Groups, hospices, patients, carers, and all staff who provide palliative care to children. This short guide has been written for Clinical Commissioning Groups, hospices, patients, carers, and all staff who provide palliative care to children. Commissioners need to be aware that palliative care for children is very different to palliative care for adults, [read the full story…]

Breaking bad news to people with learning disabilities website full of practical guidance

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Earlier this week, we posted about a study by Dr Tuffrey-Wijne and her colleagues which described the process of the development of guidelines to support decision making about disclosure or non-disclosure of bad news about life limiting illness to people with learning disabilities. That study was part of a broader programme of research that has [read the full story…]