PACED News Digest – October 2024

Palliative Care for Travelling, Working and Marrying Rather Than Dying 

Ruth Hill’s story of finding strength through palliative care after being diagnosed with incurable cancer shows us how early introduction of palliative care into treatment can help manage pain, improve the quality of life, and regain control, allowing the patient to live meaningfully despite the illness. The article highlights how palliative care supports patients at any stage, for any period, up to years, offering physical, emotional, and mental health support. Ruth’s journey illustrates the transformative power of this care, helping her live without fear while continuing to work, travel, and even remarry. See for yourself that palliative care is not about dying, but about living.

A Toolkit for Provision of Palliative Care to Homeless People 

The article discusses the challenges of providing palliative care to people experiencing homelessness, highlighting their unique healthcare needs and the barriers they face. It outlines efforts to improve care through collaboration between hostels, healthcare professionals, and social services. The National Homelessness and Palliative Care Network has developed a toolkit designed to support this vulnerable population, which leads a palliative care specialist step-by-step along an uneasy way of helping homeless people suffering from an incurable disease. More on the issue read in the article, and don`t forget to save the toolkit link.

How to Stop the Conveyor Belt Putting Older People into Hospitals

The healthcare system is overloaded and in crisis due to the so-called conveyor-belt carrying older people nearing death to hospitals: ambulance, emergency unit, hospital, intensive care unit. Healthcare and social workers are reluctant to admit such patients as ‘terminally ill.’ A group of researchers in Australia tried to have an impact, performing a trial in several hospitals, determining those older patients nearing the end of life and nudging medical staff to provide palliative care. They didn`t succeed. Nonetheless, this negative result gave them as much as an answer to the problem – empowering society just as we did it for the birthing process. Learn more about revolutionary thinking for everyone’s benefit.

Inclusive to the Very End: Engage People with Intellectual Disabilities in Planning of Their End of Life Experience

The study used an adapted Experience-Based Co-Design methodology to create a toolkit for end-of-life care planning tailored for people with intellectual disabilities. A co-design group, including individuals with intellectual disabilities, their families, support staff, and healthcare professionals, collaborated through six workshops. The group evaluated existing resources and developed new, more engaging, visual tools, such as conversation-starter pictures and planning cards. The flexible, iterative approach ensured the toolkit addressed the real needs and preferences of its users, focusing on creative methods over traditional, text-heavy formats.

Trauma From a Patient’s Point of View: Stories of the Last Survivors of Leprosy Stigma Explored by Greek Researchers

Plunge into the area of medical sociology by studying the research of patients living with Hansen’s disease in a leprosy hospice in Greece. The researchers interviewed the six only living patients of the facility, who`ve experienced obligatory confinement and persistent stigma surrounding leprosy. Based on the interviews they unearthed four superordinate as a place of solace and acceptance. Read the research depicting the deep emotional trauma experienced by the participants and find out how they managed through their everyday life.