Caregivers' perceived adequacy of support in end-stage lung disease: results of a population survey.

Background: End-stage lung disease (ESLD) is a frequent cause of death. What are the differences in the supports needed by caregivers of individuals with ESLD at end of life versus other life-limiting diagnoses?

Methods: The South Australian Health Omnibus is an annual, random, face-to-face, cross-sectional survey. In 2002, 2003 and 2005-2007, respondents were asked a range of questions about end-of-life care; there were approximately 3000 survey participants annually (participation rate 77.

Deciding what information is necessary: do patients with advanced cancer want to know all the details?

Communicating effectively with patients who have advanced cancer is one of the greatest challenges facing physicians today. Whilst guiding the patient through complex diagnostic and staging techniques, treatment regimens and trials, the physician must translate often imprecise or conflicting data into meaningful personalized information that empowers the patient to make decisions about their life and body. This requires understanding, compassion, patience, and skill.

Collaborating or co-existing: a survey of attitudes of medical oncologists toward specialist palliative care.

Patients with advanced cancer often have complex care needs requiring collaboration between medical oncology and palliative care providers. Little is known about how effective and acceptable such collaboration is to medical oncologists. Attitudes of Australian medical oncologists toward collaboration with specialist palliative care services were investigated using a Web-based survey.

Advances in the pharmacological management of breathlessness.

Purpose Of Review: To explore advances in the pharmacological treatment of refractory breathlessness and the physiological evidence for treatments.

Recent Findings: The evidence for the role of oral and parenteral opioids in the reduction of breathlessness continues to strengthen from individual studies and from systematic reviews. Importantly, more data are emerging about a lack of lowering in oxygenation or carbon dioxide retention with opioid therapy.

Comfort in the last 2 weeks of life: relationship to accessing palliative care services.

Introduction: Specialised palliative care services (SPCS) aim to address the needs of patients and caregivers confronting life-limiting illnesses but only half of the potential cohort are referred. Randomised controlled trials of SPCS provision can no longer be ethically justified so there is a need to develop new methods to evaluate the net impact of SPCS for the whole community, not just for those who access SPCS. The aim of this study was to assess whether perceived comfort in the last 2 weeks of life was associated with accessing SPCS.