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Special considerations for haematology patients in relation to end-of-life care : Australian findings

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-12-06, 00:00 authored by Pamela Mcgrath, Hamish Holewa
Recent haematology clinical guidelines recommend that palliative care specialists should have central roles in haemato-oncology teams. However, the available research evidence indicates there are presently significant obstacles to the integration of palliative care in haematology. The following discussion presents findings from an Australian study designed to address the problems associated with lack of referral of haematology patients to the palliative system through the development of a best-practice model for end-of-life care for these diagnostic groups. The preliminary step in the development of such a model is to document the factors that denote the special characteristics of the end-of-life stage of haematological conditions and their treatments.This article presents the list of special considerations from a nursing perspective, including issues associated with the high-tech nature of treatments, the speed of change to a terminal event, the need for blood products and possibility of catastrophic bleeds, the therapeutic optimism based on a myriad of treatment options and the clinical indices of the terminal trajectory. The nursing insights provide an important foundation for building a practical, patient-centred model for terminal care in haematology.

Funding

Category 1 - Australian Competitive Grants (this includes ARC, NHMRC)

History

Volume

16

Issue

2

Start Page

1

End Page

8

Number of Pages

8

ISSN

0961-5423

Location

United Kingdom

Publisher

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Language

en-aus

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • No

External Author Affiliations

Centre for Social Science Research; Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Health;

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Journal

European journal of cancer care.

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