Specialized Outpatient Palliative Care—Clinical Course and Predictors for Living at Home Until Death.

Background: Specialized outpatient palliative care (SOPC) is an important component of the palliative medicine care concept in Germany. Its purpose is to improve the out-of-hospital care of patients who cannot be adequately cared for by their primary care physicians and in the setting of general outpatient palliative care (GOPC).

Methods: In this retrospective analysis of anonymized routine treatment data, we analyzed the characteristics of SOPC patients overall and with specific diseases, and depicted them both numerically and graphically.

Communication, Coordination, and Security for People with Multiple Sclerosis (COCOS-MS): a randomised phase II clinical trial protocol.

Introduction: Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have complex needs that range from organising one's everyday life to measures of disease-specific therapy monitoring to palliative care. Patients with MS are likely to depend on multiple healthcare providers and various authorities, which are often difficult to coordinate. Thus, they will probably benefit from comprehensive cross-sectoral coordination of services provided by care and case management (CCM).

Factors influencing length of survival in ambulatory palliative care - a cross sectional study based on secondary data.

Background: Quality of life and patient self-determination are key elements in successful palliative care. To achieve these goals, a robust prediction of the remaining survival time is useful as it can provide patients and their relatives with information for individual goal setting including appropriate priorities. The Aim of our study was to assess factors that influence survival after enrollment into ambulatory palliative care.

[Pharmacists as part of an outpatient palliative care team].

Pharmacists are an integral factor in palliative medical care, especially in the context of specialised outpatient palliative care (in Germany „SAPV“). As part of a multi professional team, pharmacists take care of patients especially in complex supply situations. The drug therapy is always checked for side-effects and interactions, and the medication is adjusted to application methods which are still possible (e.

[Care of terminally ill patients and palliative sedation].

Caring of very sick and dying people at home during their last phase in life presents a maximum challenge for patients, their family, relatives and the palliative care team. Dying stages occur differently in each patient and the palliative care team must react accordingly. Despite all monitoring and sufficient treatment for the patient, symptoms can create a highly stressful situation.

[Outpatient palliative care – a multiprofessional challenge].

Life-threatening illness and the dying of a person presents a complex and particularly burdensome challenge for the person affected as well as for their relatives. This also applies to the professionals involved in caring and supporting the terminally ill patient. For this reason, palliative care has become a pioneer of a networked multi-professional and multi-perspective thinking and acting.