1 Nutrition Nurses, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, UK We read with interest the recent Cochrane review1 about home parenteral nutrition ...

Objectives Population ageing and increased care needs lead to adults making consequential medical decisions for others, potentially impacting treatment and end of life. We aim to describe the ...

Introduction Multiple studies have questioned the benefit of neutropenic diets in decreasing infections in patients with cancer, but recent surveys showed that such diets are still prescribed. In this ...

Background Calciphylaxis is a rare and poorly understood complication of end stage renal disease (ESRD) that causes a complex pain difficult to manage in the acute hospital and hospice environment.

There is an increasing need to support nursing homes in palliative care to reduce suffering and avoid unnecessary hospital admissions at the end of life. Providing education to nursing homes faces ...

Background The number of patients dying in hospital continues to remain high. One of the challenges in combating this is deciding when to actively manage a patient and when to withhold/withdraw ...

Objectives There is increased global focus on advance care planning (ACP) with attention from policymakers, more education programmes, laws and public awareness campaigns. Methods We provide a summary ...

Background The term ‘prolonged disorder of consciousness’ (PDOC) describes any disorder of consciousness that has continued for ≥4 weeks following sudden onset brain injury, and includes the ...

Depression is common: it affects one-quarter of those in palliative care.1 2 It may be associated with suicidal ideation or may have repercussions for treatment decision-making. Anxiety and depression ...

Objectives To examine whether use of a hand-held fan (‘fan’) improves breathlessness and increases physical activity. Methods A secondary exploratory analysis using pooled data from the fan arms of ...

Objectives As more countries legalise assisted dying, it is of increasing significance for policy-makers and the medical profession. Doctors are needed for patients to access this choice; however, ...