Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Florida have added to the growing evidence of the efficacy and the high patient quality of life brought on by hospice care to terminally ill cancer patients.
Publishing their work online in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, researchers were able to determine that a consultative visit to a terminal cancer patient from an oncology advanced registered nurse practitioner can do wonders for a patient's emotional and psychological well-being.
While enrollment in their study was rather low-- just 26 patients, well under the 100 planned enrollment-- and their results can best be described as subjective since they rely on self-reporting metrics, the researchers were able to demonstrate that initiating a palliative care program that involves advance directives and discussion of symptom management can boost emotional health in a patient far beyond what medicine has to offer in terms of investigational drugs or toxic chemotherapy trials.
Based on the study, the American Society of Clinical Oncology bestowed a grant on the Florida Society of Clinical Oncology to train and disseminate 13 such nurse practitioners across the state to work in public and private clinics to provide needy patients with end-of-life counseling and symptom management, in what could be seen as a model for other oncology societies to adopt.
Source: Medical News Today
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