The caregiver's perspective on end-of-life inpatient palliative care: a qualitative study.

Introduction: Understanding patient and caregiver experience is key to providing person-centered care. The palliative care approach includes holistic assessment and whole-person care at the end of life, that also involves the patient's family and loved ones. The aim of this study was to describe the way that family caregivers experienced patients' deaths during their loved ones' last hospital admission, comparing inpatient palliative care (PCU) and non-palliative care (Non-PCU) units.

End of Life Cost Savings in the Palliative Care Unit Compared to Other Services.

Context: Hospital deaths carry a significant healthcare cost that has been confirmed to be lower when palliative care units (PCUs) are available.

Objectives: To compare the last admission hospital health care cost of dying in a first-level hospital between the PCU and the rest of the hospital services.

Methods: A retrospective, comparative, observational study evaluating costs from the payer perspective on treatments and diagnostic-therapeutic tests performed on patients who die in first-level hospital, comparing whether they were treated by the PCU or another unit (Non-PCU).

[Prioritization of health resources in contexts of scarcity. SESPAS Report 2022].

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a clinical challenge, but also a legal and bioethical one. These three fundamental pillars are developed in the approach to prioritizing health resources in pandemic, clinical criteria, corresponding legal framework and applicable ethical principles. Initially, clinical criteria were applied to identify patients with the best survival prognosis, combining a clinical evaluation and the use of short-term and long-term prognostic variables.

Low-dose sublingual fentanyl improves quality of life in patients with breakthrough cancer pain in palliative care.

This subanalysis of the CAVIDIOPAL study evaluated the impact of individualized management of breakthrough cancer pain (BTcP) with fentanyl on the quality of life (QoL) of advanced cancer patients in Spanish palliative care units. This was a prospective, observational, multicenter study. The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer's QLQ-C30 questionnaire was used at baseline (V0) and visit 28 (V28).

Bioethical Concerns During the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Did Healthcare Ethics Committees and Institutions State in Spain?

Each new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic invites the possible obligation to prioritize individuals' access to vital resources, and thereby leads to unresolved and important bioethical concerns. Governments have to make decisions to protect access to the health system with equity. The prioritization criteria during a pandemic are both a clinical and legal-administrative decision with ethical repercussion.

Impact of individualized management of breakthrough cancer pain on quality of life in advanced cancer patients: CAVIDIOPAL study.

Purpose: The main aim of the study was to assess the impact of individualized management of breakthrough cancer pain (BTcP) on quality of life (QoL) of patients with advanced cancer in clinical practice.

Methods: A prospective, observational, multicenter study was conducted in patients with advanced cancer that were assisted by palliative care units. QoL was assessed with the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire at baseline (V0) and after 28 days (V28) of individualized BTcP therapy.

From Turnip to Onion: Humanities, Curiosities, and Anecdotes of Hallux Valgus.

Background: We sought to highlight the humanistic aspect of hallux valgus.

Methods: We conducted a bibliographic search between 2013 and 2017 of scientific, historic, and humanistic articles, in search of the anthropological dimension of hallux valgus. Museums and works of art by relevant painters were analzyed for the presence of hallux valgus.

Prevalence of the need for sodium intake restriction and the use of laxatives in palliative patients.

Background: palliative patients usually have diseases that require a restriction of dietary sodium, although the prevalence of this requirement is unknown. Such conditions, combined with constipation, may mean that the use of laxatives with electrolytes should be avoided.

Objectives: to ascertain the prevalence of the need to restrict sodium intake in palliative patients and to analyze the prevalence of constipation and the use of laxatives, including those containing sodium.