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Welcome to Hospice & Palliative Care Today, a daily email summarizing numerous topics essential for understanding the current landscape of serious illness and end-of-life care. Teleios Collaborative Network podcasts review Hospice & Palliative Care Today monthly content - explore these and all TCN Talks podcasts.
Saturday newsletters focus on headlines and research - enjoy!
2. Can I get a witness? The ethical dimensions of family presence in patient suffering
3. How dementia is being defeated: Incidence among the elderly is falling fast
4. Advanced care planning/Five wishes education through the lens of Caring Science
5. Medicaid expansion and mortality among formerly incarcerated individuals
6. Insurance type and quality of end-of-life care in adults < 65 years with hematologic malignancies
7. Acupuncture vs massage for insomnia and pain in advanced cancer: Exploratory RCT
8. When less is more: Palliative decision-making in a bedbound patient with advanced illness and bilateral pleural effusions
9. Concurrent palliative care and systemic treatment among young adults with advanced cancer
11. [Indonesia] Mindfulness-based spiritual interventions for patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative care: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials
An exploration of gratitude on well-being in hospice and palliative care familial caregivers
Journal of Palliative Medicine; by Kathryn Levy, Pei C Grant, Hannah Rachiele, Gina Schuster, Jonathan L Rossi, Sheila Conboy, Andrew Gasper, Christopher W Kerr; 7/26
Familial caregivers (FCGs) play a critical role in health care by providing unpaid care to loved ones with serious illness. Although caregiving is often associated with emotional and physical burden, increasing attention has been directed toward potential sources of meaning and psychological growth, including gratitude. Higher levels of gratitude were associated with greater flourishing and recognition of positive caregiving experiences and were inversely associated with caregiver strain among FCGs of hospice and palliative care patients. Future longitudinal and intervention-based research is needed to determine whether gratitude-focused approaches can improve resilience, psychological well-being, and relational connection in end-of-life caregiving.
Can I get a witness? The ethical dimensions of family presence in patient suffering
The Hastings Center Report: by Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Trevor M Bibler, Holland Kaplan, Adam Omelianchuk, Joanna Smolenski; July-August 2026
For patients who are suffering, the bedside presence of a family member can provide comfort, and many people hold that there is moral value in being present with a conscious, suffering patient. Yet what is the moral significance of the absence of family members when a patient is minimally conscious or unconscious and not aware of their absence? Clinicians are often troubled when family members and surrogate decision-makers who are able to spend a significant amount of time at an unconscious, seriously ill patient's bedside do not do so. Clinicians feel frustrated that they must bear the burden of witnessing the patient's actual or perceived suffering while the family escapes this burden and therefore appears to fail to uphold a duty to the patient. Is it morally defensible to request or require family members to be present with an unresponsive patient to bear witness to their actual or perceived suffering?
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How dementia is being defeated: Incidence among the elderly is falling fast
The Economist; 7/26
When Eric Stallard, an actuary and academic, began looking into the incidence of dementia among elderly Americans, he was so stunned by his findings that he held off publishing his first paper on the subject for two and a
half years while he double-checked his work... Instead of confirming the received wisdom that America faced an intensifying plague of the condition, they showed that the proportion of old people succumbing to it was in fact shrinking fast... Last year he and some colleagues published research in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that, whereas 40 years ago three in every ten Americans aged 85-89 had dementia, by 2024 just one in ten had it.
Journal of Nursing Education; by Lucille Jaloszynski, Giselle Trinidad, Autumn Lucas, Addison Williams, Adam Voydik, Caroline Loving, Kyle Keliipuleole, Marina Makhaly, Eleanor G Buchan, Mariana Loredana Jurist, Gloria Littlemouse; 7/26
Advance care planning (ACP) is central to holistic, patient-centered care, yet ACP conversations are emotionally sensitive and often avoided. Caring Science may foster an environment of loving-kindness that supports comfort and engagement while giving nursing students practice in facilitating end-of-life discussions. Graduate nursing students facilitated Caring Science-guided ACP sessions using Five Wishes. Conclusion: A Caring Science-guided, student-led ACP session was associated with high perceived loving-kindness, with responses suggesting ACP status may relate to confidence in wishes being followed.
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JAMA Health Forum; by Benjamin A. Barsky, Mark J. Soto, Benjamin A. Howell, Meredith B. Rosenthal; 7/28
Journal of Pain & Symptom Management; by Hari S Raman, Elizabeth Packnett, Edo Banach, Ryan Ross, Tarne Lamp, Gregory A Abel, Oreofe O Odejide; 7/26
Adults with hematologic malignancies are at risk of low-quality end-of-life (EOL) care, with evidence suggesting patients <65 years are especially at high risk. There are sparse data on the association of insurance status with quality of EOL care. In this large cohort of hematologic malignancy decedents < 65 years, Medicaid beneficiaries were less likely to experience high-intensity healthcare utilization at the EOL, less likely to die in the hospital, and more likely to enroll in hospice and receive palliative care compared to those with commercial insurance. These data suggest potentially higher quality EOL care with Medicaid compared to commercial insurance. Our findings highlight the need for policy solutions focused on insurance to improve EOL care for patients with hematologic malignancies.
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Journal of Pain & Symptom Management; by Eunbin Kwag, Rose WY Fok, Qing SLi, Raymond E. Baser, Sheila N. Garland, Kevin T. Liou, Jun J. Mao, Kelly McConnell; 7/26
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JAMA Netwok Open; by Kewei Sylvia Shi, Xu Ji, Katharine Brock, Xin Hu, Changchuan Jiang, K. Robin Yabroff, Xuesong Han; 7/26
The Lancet; by Naoko Kishitaa, Rebecca L. Gouldb, Mizanur Khondokerc, Lance M. McCrackend, Megan Riggeyc, Ana Paula Truccoa, David Howea, Abbey Couchmana, Emma Flanagane, Ramesh Vishwakarmae, Cecile Guillarde, Polly-Anna Ashforde, David Turnerc, Andrés Losada-Baltarf, Isabel Cabrera-Lafuenteg, Laura Gallego-Albertog, Erica Richmondh, Barbara Czyznikowskai, Matthew Hammonde, Aditya Nautiyalj, Morag Farquhara; 7/26
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The Fine Print:
Paywalls: Some links may take readers to articles that either require registration or are behind a paywall. Disclaimer: Hospice & Palliative Care Today provides brief summaries of news stories of interest to hospice, palliative, and end-of-life care professionals (typically taken directly from the source article). Hospice & Palliative Care Today is not responsible or liable for the validity or reliability of information in these articles and directs the reader to authors of the source articles for questions or comments. Additionally, Dr. Cordt Kassner, Publisher, and Dr. Joy Berger, Editor in Chief, welcome your feedback regarding content of Hospice & Palliative Care Today. Unsubscribe: Hospice & Palliative Care Today is a free subscription email. If you believe you have received this email in error, or if you no longer wish to receive Hospice & Palliative Care Today, please unsubscribe here or reply to this email with the message “Unsubscribe”. Thank you.