Generating Consensus on Good Practices in the Care of Portuguese Internal Medicine Patients Facing Imminent Death: A Delphi Study.

Context: Modern medicine aims to ensure a world in which all people experience a good end of life as an integral part of their life journey. A good end-of-life experience means dying with dignity and receiving the best healthcare based on scientific evidence.

Objective: This study aims to reach a consensus about the contents of a comprehensive instrument based on the 10/40 Model of the International Collaborative for the Best Care for the Dying Person for evaluating inpatients facing imminent death in Portuguese internal medicine wards and a proposal for anticipatory medication for symptom control in inpatient and home care settings.

Palliative Care in Advanced Liver Disease: Similar or Different Palliative Care Needs in Patients with a Prospect of Transplantation? Prospective Study from a Portuguese University Hospital and Transplantation Center.

Background And Aims: End-stage liver disease (ESLD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality, comparable to a large extent to other organ insufficiencies. The need for palliative care (PC) in patients with ESLD is high. In Portugal, in the only identified study, more than 80% of patients hospitalized with ESLD had criteria for PC.

Best Supportive Care of the Patient with Oesophageal Cancer.

Background: Oesophageal cancer patients have poor survival, and most are unfit for curative or systemic palliative treatment. This article aims to review the best supportive care for oesophageal cancer, focusing on the management of its most frequent or distinctive symptoms and complications.

Methods: Evidence-based review on palliative supportive care of oesophageal cancer, based on Pubmed search for relevant clinical practice guidelines, reviews and original articles, with additional records collected from related articles suggestions, references and societies recommendations.

Palliative Care in End-Stage Liver Disease Patients Awaiting Liver Transplantation: Review.

Introduction: End-stage liver disease (ESLD) is the advanced phase of most liver diseases. The cure is liver transplantation (LT), only available for a minority of patients. This review summarizes the evidence regarding palliative care (PC) in ESLD patients awaiting LT.

Palliative approach in acute neurological events: a five-year study.

Introduction: Acute neurological illness often results in severe disability. Five-year life expectancy is around 40%; half the survivors become completely dependent on outside help.

Objective: Evaluate the symptoms of patients admitted to a Hospital ward with a diagnosis of stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage or subdural hematoma, and analyze the role of an In-Hospital Palliative Care Support Team.

[Patient centered practice in internal medicine].

We made a cross-sectional study aimed at 50 professionals (18 doctors, 32 nurses) of a tertiary hospital Internal Medicine (IM) ward, focusing the relevant knowledge in various areas of Patient-Centered Care in Chronic Disease: symptom control, pharmacology and palliative prognostic discussion. Almost 98% believe that most patients need strategies for symptomatic care, which died in hospital in considerable suffering (68%). Provision of palliative care in the community was rarely established with the primary health team.

Non-invasive ventilation in cardiogenic pulmonary edema in the emergency department.

Bilevel positive pressure (BiPAP) non-invasive ventilation (NIV) is frequently used in our emergency department (ED), as an adjuvant in the treatment of acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema (ACPE) to reduce the need for tracheal intubation (TI) in these patients. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the safety of NIV in patients with ACPE in our ED, used by a group of physicians outside the intensive care unit (ICU), by comparing our results with previously published results. We also wanted to identify possible additional advantages of NIV in the treatment of acpe.