(Press-News.org) Hospitals across the nation are increasingly implementing palliative care programs to help patients manage the physical and emotional burdens of serious illnesses, but a new University of Georgia study finds that 82 percent of the state's hospitals do not offer palliative care services.
"Most people will have some sort of extended illness at the end of their life, and many, especially frail elders, could benefit from this type of care," said study principal investigator Anne Glass, assistant director of the UGA Institute of Gerontology, part of the College of Public Health. "But only 18 percent of hospitals in Georgia have palliative care programs, and the people we spoke with at more than half of the hospitals didn't even know what palliative care was."
Palliative care is a medical subspecialty focused on treating the pain, symptoms and stress of advanced illnesses. Glass, whose findings appear in the early online edition of the Journal of Palliative Medicine, points out that palliative care shares many of the same principles of hospice, but with notable differences. Hospice is for people with terminal illnesses who no longer receive curative treatment and are in the last stages of life. Palliative care, on the other hand, can be offered earlier during an illness and can be delivered in conjunction with curative treatment.
A 2010 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that lung cancer patients receiving palliative care experienced less depression, improved quality of life and survived 2.7 months longer than those in a control group who did not receive palliative care. A 2011 study in the journal Health Affairs found that palliative care reduced costs for patients by an average of $6,900, primarily through a reduction in intensive care unit days, laboratory work and diagnostic imaging.
Glass and co-author Molly Burgess contacted the 128 Georgia hospitals listed on the Medicare.gov website to assess whether they had a palliative care program and how closely those programs met the national palliative care consensus guidelines.
Palliative care has a long history in medicine, but only has been a formal subspecialty since 2006. The UGA researchers found that more than half (55 percent) of the hospital representatives they spoke with did not know what palliative care was, a finding that Glass said reflects the need for greater education about palliative care for healthcare providers at all levels, including in medical and nursing schools.
Nationwide, palliative care programs have expanded rapidly during the past decade. A study by the non-profit Center to Advance Palliative Care found that nearly 60 percent of hospitals with 50 beds or more had palliative care programs in 2008, an increase of 126 percent since 2000.
In Georgia, however, the percentage of hospitals offering palliative care is much lower. The UGA researchers found that 17 percent of hospitals with 50 beds or more had palliative care programs in 2010, the year their survey was conducted. Only one for-profit hospital reported offering palliative care services.
Glass emphasized that palliative care programs don't need to be costly to be effective. A single board-certified physician can consult with patients, their families and the referring physician to implement a plan of care that maximizes the patient's physical and emotional well-being. Rural hospitals or those with limited resources can create networks that enable one physician to serve multiple hospitals. Another option is the use of video conferencing technology to provide palliative care consultations to patients, she said.
Glass acknowledged that conversations about serious illness and death can be uncomfortable, but urged people to be informed about end of life treatment options and to discuss their wishes with their families.
"Talk about end of life care with your family ahead of time and don't wait until somebody is in a crisis," she said. "Because once you get in the hospital, things can happen really fast."
###To learn more about the UGA College of Public Health, see http://www.publichealth.uga.edu/.
Georgia hospitals lag in palliative care for the seriously ill, UGA study finds
2011-07-12
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
U of T research suggests female minorities are more affected by racism than sexism
2011-07-12
Studies by the University of Toronto's psychology department suggest that racism may impact some female minority groups more deeply than sexism.
"We found that Asian women take racism more personally and find it more depressing than sexism," said lead author and doctoral student Jessica Remedios.
"In order to understand the consequences for people who encounter prejudice, we must consider the type of prejudice they are facing," says Remedios.
In one study, 66 participants of Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Taiwanese and Japanese descent were assigned one of three hypothetical ...
University of Kentucky-led research could be path to new energy sources
2011-07-12
LEXINGTON, Ky. − A team of researchers led by University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Professor Joe Chappell is making a connection from prehistoric times to the present that could result in being able to genetically create a replacement for oil and coal shale deposits. This could have fundamental implications for the future of the earth's energy supply.
Tom Niehaus, completing his doctorate in the Chappell laboratory; Shigeru Okada, a sabbatical professor from the aquatic biosciences department at the University of Tokyo; Tim Devarenne, a UK graduate and ...
New research shows forest trees remember their roots
2011-07-12
Toronto, ON - When it comes to how they respond to the environment, trees may not be that different from humans.
Recent studies showed that even genetically identical human twins can have a different chance of getting a disease. This is because each twin has distinct personal experiences through their lifetime.
It turns out that the same is likely true for forest trees as well, according to new research from the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC).
"The findings were really quite stunning," says Malcolm Campbell, a biologist and lead author of the study. "People ...
Multiple 'siblings' from every gene: Alternate gene reading leads to alternate gene products
2011-07-12
A genome-wide survey by researchers at The Wistar Institute shows how our cells create alternate versions of mRNA transcripts by altering how they "read" DNA. Many genes are associated with multiple gene promoters, the researchers say, which is the predominant way multiple variants of a given gene, for example, can be made with the same genetic instructions.
Their findings, which appear in the journal Genome Research, available online now, show how genes are read in developing and adult brains, and identify the changes in reading DNA that accompany brain development. ...
Researchers identify key role of microRNAs in melanoma metastasis
2011-07-12
Researchers at the NYU Cancer Institute, an NCI-designated cancer center at NYU Langone Medical Center, identified for the first time the key role specific microRNAs (miRNAs) play in melanoma metastasis to simultaneously cause cancer cells to invade and immunosuppress the human body's ability to fight abnormal cells. The new study is published in the July 11, 2011 issue of the journal Cancer Cell.
Researchers performed a miRNA analysis of human melanoma tissues, including primary and metastatic tumors. They found in both sets of tumor cells significantly high levels ...
Malaria parasites use camouflage to trick immune defences of pregnant women
2011-07-12
Researchers from Rigshospitalet – Copenhagen University Hospital – and the University of Copenhagen have discovered why malaria parasites are able to hide from the immune defences of expectant mothers, allowing the parasite to attack the placenta. The discovery is an important part of the efforts researchers are making to understand this frequently fatal disease and to develop a vaccine.
Staff member at CMP. Photo: Lars Hviid"We have found one likely explanation for the length of time it takes for the expectant mother's immune defences to discover the infection in the ...
Pitt team finds way to classify post-cardiac arrest patients to better predict outcomes
2011-07-12
PITTSBURGH, July 11 – A new method for scoring the severity of illness for patients after cardiac arrest may help to predict their outcomes, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Most importantly, their findings, published in the early online version of Resuscitation, also show that none of the severity categories rules out the potential for a patient's recovery.
"Traditionally, we have used historical or event-related information, such as initial cardiac rhythm or whether someone witnessed the collapse, to categorize these patients ...
Owl study expands understanding of human stereovision
2011-07-12
Rockville, Md. — Using owls as a model, a new research study reveals the advantage of stereopsis, commonly referred to as stereovision, is its ability to discriminate between objects and background; not in perceiving absolute depth. The findings were published in a recent Journal of Vision article, Owls see in stereo much like humans do.
The purpose of the study, which was conducted at RWTH Aachen (Germany) and Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands), was to uncover how depth perception came into existence during the course of evolution.
"The reason why studying ...
Health-care practitioners' stories can aid medical device designers
2011-07-12
Health care laws to protect patients' privacy make it nearly impossible for medical device designers to develop and test the safety and usability of medical products by observing use in an actual practitioner-patient setting. As a result, usability errors and hazards may be overlooked, with the potential for devastating consequences. In the recent issue of Ergonomics in Design, human factors/ergonomics researchers found that storytelling as a qualitative research method was a more effective—and stimulating—way for health care practitioners to provide valuable insights during ...
Chicks dig certain types of music
2011-07-12
What accounts for the sounds we like to hear? Is it something about the properties of our auditory systems or brains? Or are such tastes learned? Two-month-old human infants show a preference for consonant, or gentler harmonies over more dissonant or harsher ones. But it's still impossible to know whether that preference is inborn, since the babies may have been exposed to certain sounds, even in utero.
Birds show similar behaviors: they can distinguish between different kinds of sounds and certain species are attracted to certain sounds. But because no one had experimented ...