Sedation from analgesics: patient preference survey.

Background: The propensity for certain analgesics to cause sedation is well documented, yet physician-patient dialogue does not routinely include pre-emptive exploration of preferences regarding this side effect.

Objectives: To investigate the extent to which palliative patients would accept sedation as a side effect of analgesia and to identify factors affecting decision-making.

Methods: Patients (n=76) known to a specialist palliative care services were given hypothetical scenarios regarding pain and asked about the acceptability of varying levels of sedation occurring as an analgesic side effect.

Development of EASY-Care, for brief standardized assessment of the health and care needs of older people; with latest information about cross-national acceptability.

Introduction: The EASY-Care system has been developed in the past 20 years in the United States and Europe as a brief standardized method for assessing the perceptions of older people about their health and care needs and priorities for a service response. More recently, it has been adapted and tested for use in poor, middle-income, and rich countries across the world. In this article we review its development and report the latest data for cross-cultural acceptability to older people and their clinicians in 6 countries across 4 continents.

Bowel dysfunction after total abdominal hysterectomy for benign conditions: a prospective longitudinal study.

Background And Aim: On the basis of retrospective studies, hysterectomy has been considered a risk factor for functional bowel disorders. The aim of this study was to prospectively evaluate the patients' bowel function and general health-related quality of life (QoL) before and after hysterectomy. Our hypothesis was that hysterectomy in properly selected patients can impact positively on the patients' self-reporting of their general health and bowel function.