Changing characteristics of patients with palliative care needs in acute hospitals.

Background: Palliative care services drastically changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic between the years 2020 to 2022.

Aim: To report on the changes in a specialist palliative care hospital liaison service (SPCHLS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and consider the impact of this for longer term service modelling.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of patients admitted via the emergency department (ED) in January 2020 and 2021, who were given a palliative care 'code' at the end of their episode of care.

Palliative care inpatients favour research participation irrespective of prognosis, performance or socioeconomic status: multicentre cohort study.

Objectives: Palliative care needs to embrace research to guide service development and effective symptom management. Healthcare professionals often feel research is too burdensome for patients who have poor performance status or are near the end of life. Many studies exclude these groups from participating.

Clinical frailty and performance scale translation in palliative care: scoping review.

Background: Frailty is associated with advancing age and increases the risk of adverse outcomes and death. Routine assessment of frailty is becoming more common in a number of healthcare settings, but not in palliative care, where performance scales (eg, the Australia-modified Karnofsky Performance Status Scale (AKPS)) are more commonly employed. A shared understanding of performance and frailty measures could aid interspecialty collaboration in both end-of-life care research and clinical practice.

Palliative medicine trainees be should learn about frailty: meta-synthesis and Delphi study to establish curriculum content.

Objectives: Frailty is common and highly associated with morbidity and mortality, a fact that has been highlighted by COVID-19. Understanding how to provide palliative care for frail individuals is an international priority, despite receiving limited mention in Palliative Medicine curricula or examinations worldwide. This study aimed to synthesise evidence and establish expert consensus on what should be included in a Palliative-Medicine Specialist Training Curriculum for frailty.

GIST-related malignant ascites with large-volume paracentesis complicated by myocardial infarction and tumour rupture.

This paper describes a patient with an inoperable gastrointestinal stromal tumour with moderate volume malignant ascites. A large-volume paracentesis caused haemodynamic instability and a myocardial infarction. An indwelling right-sided peritoneal catheter was inserted following further ascites build-up.