Hospice care access inequalities: a systematic review and narrative synthesis.

Background: Inequalities in access to hospice care is a source of considerable concern; white, middle-class, middle-aged patients with cancer have traditionally been over-represented in hospice populations.

Objective: To identify from the literature the demographic characteristics of those who access hospice care more often, focusing on: diagnosis, age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, geography and socioeconomic status.

Design: Systematic literature review and narrative synthesis.

Planning for an uncertain future in progressive neurological disease: a qualitative study of patient and family decision-making with a focus on eating and drinking.

Background: Dysphagia and other eating and drinking difficulties are common in progressive neurological diseases. Mealtimes can become a major source of difficulty and anxiety for patients and their families. Decisions about eating, drinking and care can become challenging as disease progresses, and the person in question loses the capacity to participate in decisions about their own care.

A Review of the Efficacy and Role of the Card Sort Exercise in the Treatment of Bipolar Disorder.

The current card sort exercise described by Agius et al. in 2006 provides a tool for patients and their families to characterise the temporal pattern of occurrence of both stereotyped and idiosyncratic prodromal symptoms that serve as early warning signs predicting a relapse. This 'individual relapse signature' is highly specific for bipolar relapse, and aids identification of a relapse such that patients can be channeled into appropriate early intervention pathways.