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While many effective interventions have been developed with the potential to significantly reduce morbidity and mortality from cancer, they are of no benefit to the health of populations if they cannot be delivered. In response to this challenge, Advancing the Science of Implementation across the Cancer Continuum provides an overview of research that can improve the delivery of evidence-based interventions in cancer prevention, early detection, treatment, and survivorship. Chapters explore the field of implementation science and its application to practice, a broad synthesis of relevant research and case studies illustrating each cancer-focused topic area, and emerging issues at the intersection of research and practice in cancer. Both comprehensive and accessible, this book is an ideal resource for researchers, clinical and public health practitioners, medical and public health students, and health policymakers.Less

Compassion is a complex and multifaceted concept that has been explored from a range of cultural, philosophical, theological, and sociological perspectives. It can be considered a prerequisite for optimal health care, an expectation of the general public from their health care system, and a specific approach to care which should underpin the work of health care professionals globally. Given the nature of life-limiting illness and the challenges that shifting goals of care impose, the place of compassion as the underlying construct governing health care decisions would seem paramount. Yet there is an increasing concern-particularly in the UK media and recent reviews of clinical practices around end-of-life care-suggesting that somehow compassion has been lost as a governing principle of care giving. The reasons for this are not always clear, but increased clinical intervention, the over-professionalization of care, and lack of formal teaching on the topic of compassion are all indicated. Given the complex nature of care in advanced illness and life-limiting disease, the place of compassion within palliative and end-of-life care is worthy of further exploration to try to understand this phenomenon better. This book asks an international panel of expert palliative care practitioners to consider these issues for themselves and the discipline as we move into the 21st century. Through a series of interviews with some of the world’s experts in the field, the meaning, purpose, and outcome of providing compassionate care for palliative and end-of-life care is explored and critiqued. A critical commentary of themes raised by each contributor is discussed relative to the broader literature around the topic, and further reading and learning resources indicated for practitioners, educators, and students to follow up.Less

Providing an overview of pharmacology and prescribing advice, this second edition contains over 160 drug monographs, presented in an A-Z format. Fully revised and updated, this detailed yet concise resource will appeal to all healthcare professionals involved in the provision of palliative care and medicines information. Less

No specialty faces more diverse and challenging ethical dilemmas than palliative medicine. What is the best way to plan ahead for the end of life? How should physicians respond when patients refuse treatments likely to be beneficial or demand treatments not likely to be? Who makes medical decisions for patients who are too ill to decide for themselves? Do patients have the “right to die” (and, if so, what exactly does that mean)? Other ethics texts have explored these issues but often from an academic perspective that overlooks the practical realities of clinical medicine. Conversely, medical textbooks frequently lack sufficient philosophical depth to fully explore the complexities of these issues. This complete guide to the ethics of palliative care combines clinical experience with philosophical rigor to provide a comprehensive analysis of this fascinating field. Using relevant case studies, core subjects such as intensive symptom management at the end of life, physician-assisted dying, and palliative sedation are examined from historical, legal, clinical, and ethical perspectives. Whereas pediatric issues are often an afterthought in palliative care textbooks, this guide explores the unique nature of ethical dilemmas in the prenatal, neonatal, and adolescent age groups. Other important topics such as neuro-palliative care, organ donation, research, and moral distress are also covered in detail. Written with clinical nuance for medical professionals—and clear language as well as a glossary for lay readers—this guide offers all readers an opportunity to explore and understand the fascinating ethical issues facing patients suffering from life-threatening illness.Less

The growing geriatric population has created an increasing need for palliative medicine services across the range of medical and surgical specialties, but palliative medicine lacks the resources to carry such a workload itself. This online resource addresses this need by encouraging individual specialties to address the management of the elderly with the same vigor as they address other key management competencies within their specialty. This clinically focused online resource encourages this process of learning and ownership across many medical specialties. It outlines specific strategies present is specific palliative care issues common in elderly patients, and also provides evidence-based advice for helping patients, relatives, and staff cope with such issues as polypharmacy, dementia and consent, multiple pathologies, home care, elderly caregivers, and supporting the elderly in the place where they would like to be.Less

Geriatric Psycho-Oncology is a comprehensive guide that provides best practice models for the management of psychological, cognitive, and social outcomes of older adults living with cancer and their families. Chapters cover a wide range of topics including screening tools and interventions, psychiatric emergencies and disorders, physical symptom management, communication issues, and issues specific to common cancer sites. A resource section is appended to provide information on national services and programs. This title features contributions from experts designed to help clinicians review, anticipate and respond to emotional issues that often arise in the context of treating older cancer patients. Numerous cross-references and succinct tables and figures make this concise reference easy to use.Less

Excellent end of life care for people with heart failure is challenging but possible. In easily digestible summaries, this resource presents practical advice about how and when to integrate a palliative care approach alongside standard heart failure management. Less

In the United States, the subspecialty of hospice and palliative medicine has seen rapid growth since it was recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. During the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of palliative care programs and improved access to palliative and hospice for patients with life-limiting illness. There has also been an increase in the educational opportunities as well as growth of fellowship programs to train palliative care fellows. Unfortunately, there are limited study aids available for learning and retaining essential concepts in palliative care. Hospice and Palliative Medicine and Supportive Care Flashcards is a comprehensive, evidence-based book of flashcards for clinicians caring for patients who require hospice and palliative care and supportive care. Written in a clinical scenario/vignette, question-and-answer format by experts with first-hand experience in the field, the flashcards are highly readable and serve as a source of fast answers to clinical questions in the field. A total of 300 flashcards are organized into chapters by disease and provide readers with up-to-date information that follows the core curriculum of American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine for ease of use and rapid review for exams. This book will equip care professionals with key concepts related to the assessment and management of palliative care, making it an ideal point-of-care quick reference for physicians, nurse practitioners, fellows, residents, and students.Less

Spiritual sickness troubles American medicine. Through a death-denying culture, medicine has gained enormous power—an influence it maintains by distancing itself from religion and spirituality, which too often remind us of our mortality. As a result of this separation of medicine from spiritual traditions, patients facing serious illness infrequently receive adequate spiritual care despite the large body of empirical data demonstrating its import to patient meaning-making, quality of life, and medical utilization. This secular–sacred divide also unleashes depersonalizing social forces through the market, technology, and legal-bureaucratic powers that reduce clinicians to tiny cogs in an unstoppable machine. Hostility to Hospitality is one of the first books of its kind to explore these hostilities threatening medicine and offer a path forward for the partnership of modern medicine and spirituality. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship including empirical studies, interviews, history and sociology, theology, and public policy, the authors argue for structural pluralism as the missing piece to changing hostility to hospitality.Less

Patients with advanced cancer may develop a number of clinical complications related to tumor progression or a variety of aggressive treatments. The majority of these patients are elderly, often with multiple co-morbidities that require appropriate assessment and management. In the palliative stage of their disease, patients undergo a progressive transition from active acute care to community-based hospice care. This transition requires modification in the diagnostic tests, monitoring procedures and pharmacological treatments to adjust them to the palliative and short-term nature of the care. Internal Medicine Issues in Palliative Cancer Care looks at internal medicine through a prognosis-based framework and provides a practical approach to maximizing comfort and quality of life while minimizing aggressive investigations and therapies for patients with life-limiting disease. Forty-six common internal medicine conditions are organized into nine clinical categories: pulmonary, cardiovascular, renal and metabolic, gastrointestinal, hematologic, infectious, endocrine, rheumatologic, and neuro-psychiatric.Less

This resource provides practical guidance on end of life management for patients with renal disease. It is presented in easily accessible, bullet point style, and is illustrated with case histories from real life patients, and drug tables. Less

Landmark Papers in Pain offers a comprehensive inventory of over 80 key studies in pain medicine from the last 100 years. Pain medicine, a relatively new specialty, has proven increasingly relevant to medical practitioners in every field. The specialism of pain has emerged over the past 50 years, largely due to the persistence of experts and new medical evidence that points to its necessity. Today, it is a distinct and integral part of global medical practice. Each paper in this book is accompanied by a concise commentary on the significance of the original findings written by an expert in pain. The reviews discuss how the papers influenced the development of the speciality and how the findings have advanced our global comprehension of pain. Together, the selected papers and reviews chart the growth of an embryonic field into the modern speciality of pain medicine. Complied by leading specialists in the field, the papers included in this book are significant for any student, researcher, clinical practitioner, or medical historian interested in pain medicine. Organized into eight distinct topics and cross-referenced by topics and author of original paper, the book is comprehensive in its coverage and easy to use. A review of the contemporary and historical research that shaped the speciality of pain, Landmark Papers in Pain is essential reading for all medical practitioners with an interest in pain medicine and pain research.Less

The importance of spiritual well-being and the role of "meaning" in moderating depression, hopelessness and desire for death in terminally-ill cancer and AIDS patients has been well-supported by research, and has led many palliative clinicians to focus on the development of non-pharmacologic interventions that can help their patients address these issues. Individual Meaning-Centered Group Psychotherapy (IMCP), an intervention developed and rigorously tested by the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, is a seven-week program based around the work of Viktor Frankl, and which utilizes a mixture of didactics, discussion and experiential exercises that focus around particular themes related to meaning and advanced cancer. Patients are assigned readings and homework that are specific to each session's theme and which are utilized in each session. While the focus of each session is on issues of meaning and purpose in life in the face of advanced cancer and a limited prognosis, elements of support and expression of emotion are inevitable in the context of each group session. Less

There is an evolution taking place regarding the nature and scope of the clinical goals of psychotherapeutic or counseling interventions in the palliative care setting. Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy in the Cancer Setting provides a theoretical context for meaning-centered psychotherapy (MCP), a nonpharmacologic intervention that has been shown to enhance meaning and spiritual well-being, increase hope, improve quality of life, and significantly decrease depression, anxiety, desire for hastened death, and symptom burden distress in the cancer setting. Based on the work of Viktor Frankl and his concept of logotherapy, MCP is an innovative intervention for clinicians practicing in fields of psycho-oncology, palliative care, bereavement, and cancer survivorship. This resource contains chapters on adapting MCP for different cancer-related populations and for different purposes and clinical problems, including interventions for cancer survivors, caregivers of cancer patients, adolescents and young adults with cancer, as a bereavement intervention, and cultural and linguistic applications in languages such as Mandarin, Spanish, and Hebrew.Less

Oxford Case Histories in Oncology contains 30 well-structured cases from clinical practice, giving a comprehensive coverage of the diagnostic and management dilemmas in oncology. The cases cover a wide spectrum of oncology, including rare presentations and clinical problems of common cancers. Each case comprises a brief clinical history with relevant clinical examination findings. Questions are based on clinical investigations and aspects of management. Detailed answers are based on the best available evidence from the latest research, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and guidelines from national and international academic bodies. This resource is complimented by over 50 illustrations, including radiographic images and radiotherapy treatment plans. Less

Comprehensive in scope and definitive in authority, this second edition has been thoroughly updated to cover new practices, current epidemiological data and the evolving models that support the delivery of palliative medicine to children. it is is an essential resource for anyone who works with children worldwide. Less

This new edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine has been thoroughly updated to offer a truly global perspective in this field, and new sections include information on assessment tools, care of patients with cancer, and the management of issues in the very young and the very old. It covers all the new and emerging topics, and the multi-disciplinary nature of palliative care is emphasized throughout, covering areas from ethical and communication issues, the treatment of symptoms, and the management of pain.Less

Spirituality and healthcare is an emerging field of research, practice and policy, and healthcare organisations and practitioners are therefore challenged to understand and address spirituality, develop their knowledge and implement effective policy. This is the first reference resource to provide a comprehensive overview of the key topics.Less

This is a guide for the practising GP on how to help in the management of patients presenting with pain or other common distressing symptoms. This online reference is split into two sections; pain management and a detailed review of pain control techniques, and palliation and an exploration of the methods of symptom control available for use in the community. It also devotes a section to terminal illness and the new GMS contract.Less

Palliative Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on an Emerging Specialty is the first book that proposes palliative psychology as a new specialty defining the roles and competencies of psychologists working in the palliative care setting in the US context. As proposed and defined in this book, palliative psychology is a specialty for licensed psychologists interested in providing psychological assessment and interventions to patients with serious and advanced illness and their family caregivers. The psychologist’s involvement can begin after a diagnosis of serious illness and continue during treatment, transition of care, during the dying process, and in bereavement. This book follows the framework developed by the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, which identifies eight domains of specialist palliative care. The chapters of the book explore each of the domains, describing some of the essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes that palliative psychologists should develop to become competent palliative care professionals. Tables and clinical case vignettes are used throughout the book to illustrate important clinical aspects related to the work of palliative psychologists.Less