Experiences of living with a deteriorating body in late palliative phases of cancer.

Purpose Of Review: The trajectory of living with incurable cancer is characterized by increasing deterioration of the person's body. The aim of this review is to gain insight into the expert knowledge people have about their own lived experiences of bodily deterioration and symptoms in late palliative phases of cancer, and suggest a framework for understanding and studying these experiences.

Recent Findings: When assessing the presence, severity and distress of symptoms and problems experienced by patients, it is important to carefully consider choice of instruments, which by nature, tend to target distinct problems, and expand assessment to include narrative approaches.

Acupuncture as an optional treatment for hospice patients with xerostomia: an intervention study.

More than 70% of seriously ill patients with cancer suffer from xerostomia and the associated problems of swallowing, chewing and speaking. This study aims to investigate whether treatment with acupuncture is a viable option for hospice patients with xerostomia. During a 2-year period, 117 patients were assessed for xerostomia.

A life enriching togetherness--meanings of informal support when being a parent of a child with disability.

The majority of children affected by disability are cared for at home by their parents. It is well documented in research literature that the parents are in need of professional support. In the striving to improve the professional caring, it is also important to deepen our understanding about the meaning of informal support from the perspective of parents' life world.

How to get one's voice heard: the problems of the discharge planning conference.

Aims: This paper reports a study describing how patients, relatives and healthcare professionals dealt with the variety of problems and responsibilities that occur in discharge planning conferences and especially how they managed to do this given the institutional frame that surrounded the meeting.

Background: In Sweden, the aim of a discharge planning conference is to co-ordinate social and healthcare resources as patients are discharged from hospitals. Patients, relatives and hospital staff, along with healthcare professionals responsible for outpatient care, assemble to achieve an individual care plan.

Asthma--quality of life for Swedish children.

Aims And Objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe how Swedish children with asthma experience their QoL and to search for possible associations between their experience of QoL and some determinants.

Background: Asthma is a chronic disorder that can restrict a child's life, physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually, and this has an impact on a child's quality of life (QoL).

Methods: Two hundred and twenty-six children with asthma (37% girls and 63% boys) and 371 parents of these children participated in the study.

Having a child with asthma--quality of life for Swedish parents.

Background: Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease. Childhood asthma contributes significantly to morbidity among children and has a significant impact on the quality of life (QoL) and daily routines of both the children and their parents.

Aim And Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate how Swedish parents of children with asthma experience their QoL, and to investigate whether there were differences concerning QoL between parents within the same family.