Antibiotics at End of Life: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going? A Narrative Review.

Background: Antibiotics are frequently prescribed at the end of life, though the benefits and harms are not well understood.

Methods: We abstracted relevant findings from articles published in English in the past 25 years to answer questions generated by discussion among the authors and with stakeholders in Palliative Care and Infectious Diseases.

Findings: Prescribing practices vary based on individual situation and geographic location.

Intravenous Ketamine for Cancer Pain: A Single-Center Retrospective Analysis Comparing Fixed-Rate Versus Weight-Based Dosing.

Although weak evidence exists to support subanesthetic ketamine for cancer pain treatment, successful use may be hindered in the absence of standardized dosing guidance. We aimed to compare the success rates of intravenous ketamine fixed-rate versus weight-based dosing strategies for cancer pain treatment, and to assess patient characteristics that correlate with treatment success. We conducted a single-center retrospective review including non-critically ill adults with cancer pain who received subanesthetic ketamine for at least 24-h.

Development and Evaluation of a Digital App for Patient Self-Management of Opioid Use Disorder: Usability, Acceptability, and Utility Study.

Background: Self-management of opioid use disorder (OUD) is an important component of treatment. Many patients receiving opioid agonist treatment in methadone maintenance treatment settings benefit from counseling treatments to help them improve their recovery skills but have insufficient access to these treatments between clinic appointments. In addition, many addiction medicine clinicians treating patients with OUD in a general medical clinic setting do not have consistent access to counseling referrals for their patients.

Development of a Patient-Centered Software System to Facilitate Effective Management of Bipolar Disorder.

Objective: Self-management of bipolar disorder (BD) is an important component of treatment.

Methods: We developed a patient-centered computational software system based on concepts from nonlinear systems (chaos) theory with mobile access to assist in managing BD known as KIOS. KIOS tracks interacting symptoms to determine theprecise state of a BD patient.