Op vrijdag 30 januari 2015 organiseerde de werkgroep PST van Vlaamse Federatie Palliatieve Zorg de studiedag "Oncologisch team en palliatief supportteam: verder goed samenwerken!?" in het Vormingscentrum Guislain in Gent. Op hun website vind je onder 'Presentaties studiedag werkgroep PST' de powerpointpresentatie.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care (PC) as an approach to improve the quality of life of patients facing life-threatening illness, through prevention and relief of pain and of physical, psychosocial and spiritual problems. PC is traditionally offered late in the course of the incurable illness, e.g. when death is imminent. Studies suggest that PC should be provided early in the disease trajectory to have meaningful effects on the quality of life and quality of care in the final phase of life.
Advanced cancer seriously affects the quality of life of patients. Open and respectful communication about end of life care wishes is important to these patients. However, discussing these wishes is hard for healthcare professionals as well as patients and relatives. Advance care planning may support patients in making make their wishes known and followed. In ACTION, we study the effect of advance care planning in patients with end stage cancer. Advance care planning is a formalised process of communication between patients, relatives and professional caregivers.
The main objective of this dissertation was to gain insight into the preferences of advanced lung cancer patients for receiving information and participating in decision-making concerning treatment options, health-care setting transfers and end-of-life decision-making (ELDs). In the course of one year, physicians in thirteen hospitals in Flanders, Belgium, recruited patients with initial non-small-cell lung cancer, stage IIIb or IV.
The use of continuous sedation until death for terminally ill cancer patients with unbearable and untreatable psychological and existential suffering remains controversial, and little in-depth insight exists into the circumstances in which physicians resort to it.
The long-term and often lifelong relationship of general practitioners (GPs) with their patients is considered to make them the ideal initiators of advance care planning (ACP). However, in general the incidence of ACP discussions is low and ACP seems to occur more often for cancer patients than for those with dementia or heart failure.
