Early discussions about desired end-of-life care, among patients with incurable cancer, were associated with less aggressive treatment in the last month of life, according to a study published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (Nov. 13 online ahead of print).

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) highlighted this study for providing “the first-of-its-kind scientific evidence that timing of end-of-life discussions affects decisions” and actual treatment given at the end of a patient’s life.

The study found that nearly 40% of end-of-life discussions with cancer patients happened in the last 30 days of life. Among patients who had such discussions earlier, they were much more likely to receive hospice care and less likely to be treated aggressively at the end of life. Read the rest of this entry »

Fight Colorectal Cancer’s September 2012 patient webinar focused on issues that run rampant with misunderstanding and fear: palliative and hospice care.

Dr. Jim Meadows, Director of Palliative and Hospice Care at Tennessee Oncology, led the webinar. He spoke at length about palliative care, but not surprisingly, the majority of questions toward the end of the webinar focused on hospice care.

One listener had a good question that elicited a great response from Dr. Meadows. We wanted to share it with you.

Q: Isn’t hospice ‘end of life’ care? Why are you saying it prolongs life when I have heard of many people having to watch for days and even weeks while their loved one wastes away and dies? Why say it prolongs life, at what emotional cost to patient and family?

Read the rest of this entry »

[Our dear friend and advocate Pat Steer passed away on July 17, 2012. This was the last blog post she wrote for us.]

My friend Janet asked me last week if there were still things I wished I could do, any unfinished things on my bucket list. I thought for a minute before I said, “No.”

I’m sure Janet expected something like a wish to visit the Grand Canyon or take that cross-country sleeper train trip I’d always promised myself. What I really wanted to say, the first thing that came to mind: “I want to be strong enough to go upstairs and do a load of laundry.” Inconsequential as it seems, climbing the stairs to do laundry is where my head went when asked about my bucket list.

I never had a formal bucket list; instead, I created long-term goals. Despite all the goal-maker’s advice, mine were never written down, and were flexible, but I did get to most of them. I didn’t make yearly resolutions; I made training goals for my dogs. I set goals to pay off credit cards and become debt-free (and did it). I set a goal to pay off my condo in 10 years (and did it). Read the rest of this entry »

Should cancer care focused on quality of life wait until all treatment ends?  Or can it be integrated with medical treatment as soon as someone is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness?

In a study of 150 advanced lung cancer patients, starting palliative care along with standard life-prolonging treatment when patients were first diagnosed not only improved their mood and quality of life, it actually increased the time they lived.

Although patients who received early palliative care received less aggressive treatment at the end of life, they lived almost 3 months longer than patients who didn’t have such early support. Read the rest of this entry »

Dying cancer patients had less fatigue and their physical symptoms improved when they had physical therapy three times a week.

Control group patients who were not included in the PT program had both physical symptoms and quality of life get worse, even over two weeks of observation.

Patients in the study were part of a hospice program in Poland.

Read the rest of this entry »