Purpose: There is an increasing demand for quality palliative care teaching within undergraduate medical education. Studies suggest that many junior doctors feel underprepared to perform end-of-life care. Previous systematic reviews on palliative…
BACKGROUND:
Palliative care guidelines recommend plain radiographs to assess constipation based on the presumption that visible fecal shadowing represents stool retention. Despite this, using plain radiographs in this way is not well…
Background: Geography and population distribution present challenges to the care of children with life-limiting conditions (LLC) within Australia. Children and young people have unique needs in relation to the provision of palliative care within…
BACKGROUND: Written resources in adult intensive care have been shown to benefit families facing end of life (EoL) decisions. There are few resources for parents making EoL decisions for their child and no existing resources addressing ethical…
OBJECTIVES: A key aim of palliative care is to improve the quality-of-life of people with a life-threatening illness. Occupational therapists are well positioned to contribute to this aim due to their broad range of interventions, client-centeredness…
BACKGROUND: End-of-life and bereavement care is an important consideration in intensive care. This study describes the type of bereavement care provided in intensive care units across Australia and New Zealand. DESIGN: Inductive qualitative content…
BACKGROUND: Continuous quality improvement is fundamental in all health care, including hospice and palliative care. Identifying and systematically reducing symptomatic adverse events is limited in hospice and palliative care because these events are…
Hospices were founded to alleviate suffering at the end of life. Quality improvement in hospices should, therefore, target patients' subjective assessments of their care and its outcomes. However, little is known about the relationships among…
It is widely believed that the improved survival of young people with chronic diseases will be associated with the development of appropriate services within the adult healthcare domain. There is, however, little evidence to suggest that this is…
Palliative medicine has developed as a specialized field of practice in recent decades but the focus has been very much on older adults with incurable malignancies. The needs of dying children have not been addressed adequately and the question of…
INTRODUCTION: This intervention study examines anxiety and uncertainty in illness in families transferring from intensive care to a general ward. METHODS: The pre-test, post-test design purposively allocated family members to a control (n = 80) and…
OBJECTIVE: To identify criteria for measuring the eligibility of patients with end-stage noncancer diseases for palliative care services in Australian residential aged care facilities. METHODS: No validated set if guidelines were available so five…
This study, using a Delphi approach, sought the opinion of a self-selected panel of 320 district nurses regarding research priorities for district nursing in Australia. Over three rounds of questionnaires, the 419 research clinical problem areas…
Young people with a chronic illness or disability originating in childhood ultimately need transition to adult care. The process of leaving a familiar paediatric service and effectively engaging in appropriate adult health care can be challenging and…
This article reports on the first stage of a process to develop a clinical performance indicator for a community-based palliative care service that may inform the development of an agreed set of indicators for the whole sector. The study explores…
BACKGROUND: Providing ongoing family centred support is an integral part of childhood cancer care. For families living in regional and remote areas, opportunities to receive specialist support are limited by the availability of health care…
Videotelephony (real-time audio-visual communication) has been used successfully in adult palliative home care. This paper describes two attempts to complete an RCT (both of which were abandoned following difficulties with family recruitment),…
This retrospective study analysed data for 703 children who died from 2000 to 2006 to examine where children with a broad range of progressive, life-limiting illnesses actually die when families are able to access hospital, paediatric hospice…
As increasing numbers of young people with chronic illness reach adulthood, their ongoing medical care must evolve to be delivered in an adult rather than paediatric setting, a process known as transition. Towards this goal, increasing numbers of…
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The transition of healthcare from pediatric to adult settings has become more significant over the past 20 years as the survival of young people with chronic illness and disability has increased and healthcare delivery has become…
BACKGROUND: Palliative oxygen therapy is widely used for treatment of dyspnoea in individuals with life-limiting illness who are ineligible for long-term oxygen therapy. We assessed the effectiveness of oxygen compared with room air delivered by…
Palliative care is delivered in almost all settings where healthcare is provided, including neonatal units, paediatric services, acute hospitals, general practices, community settings and aged care services. People who are dying have needs which…
Music can play an important role in the lives of many young children in Australia, however the ways in which music is used, understood and engaged with can vary significantly from child to child, and family to family, dependent upon factors such as…
Decisions about whether to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining medical treatment from children give rise to complex and value-laden judgments. While recourse to the courts is uncommon, judicial decisions provide an important source of guidance for…
BACKGROUND: Models of palliative care need to address the unmet needs of children, young people and families. OBJECTIVE: To undertake an integrative review to identify the key elements of optimal paediatric palliative care from the perspectives of…
Background: and aim Palliative Care for Children is defined as 'an active and total approach to care, from the point of diagnosis or recognition throughout the child's life, death and beyond'. It is recognised that the prevalence of children with…
Background: To date, time-use studies in palliative care have been limited to exploration of time commitments of caregivers. Understanding time-use in people with a life-limiting illness might provide insight into disease progression, symptom…
Mowat-Wilson syndrome (MWS) is a multiple congenital anomaly syndrome caused by a heterozygous mutation or deletion of the ZEB2 gene. It is characterized by a distinctive facial appearance in association with intellectual disability (ID) and variable…
Rett syndrome is a rare but severe neurological disorder typically associated with a mutation in the MECP2 gene. We describe change in gross motor function over 3 to 4 years for 70 subjects participating in the Australian Rett Syndrome Database.…
Courts in England and Wales, Australia, and New Zealand have insisted the question of when it is acceptable to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining medical treatment from a child must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Over the last 40 years a…
Adolescents and young adults 15 to 25 years of age with incurable cancer are a unique patient group. There is growing evidence of the emotionally taxing nature of this work, yet limited understanding of the health care professional experience across…
AIM: Hospital readmissions within 28 days are an important performance measurement of quality and safety of health care. The aims of this study were to examine the rates, trends and characteristics of paediatric intensive care unit admissions, and…
After death care is an essential service offered by paediatric hospices in the time between the death of a child and their funeral or care being transferred to a funeral home. This service allows families time together, privacy and memory making…
Background: Stillbirth and neonatal death are devastating pregnancy outcomes with long-lasting psychosocial consequences for parents and families, and wide-ranging economic impacts on health systems and society. It is essential that parents and…
