Palliative trajectory markers for end-stage heart failure. Or "oh Toto. This doesn't look like kancerous!".
Heart failure is a complex syndrome with a high morbidity and mortality rate. The Canadian mortality rate is between 25% and 40% annually. End-stage heart failure patients suffer from many debilitating symptoms. Palliative symptom management and funding programs can assist many of these patients. Unfortunately, designating a heart failure patient as palliative with a trajectory of six months or less is not an easy task. This is difficult to determine due to the lack of tangible trajectory markers and the roller-coaster nature of the trajectory itself. These circumstances were the impetus for a review of the current literature and a clinical experience in a cardiac clinic within a major teaching hospital in Vancouver. The objective was to determine if clear palliative trajectory markers for heart failure existed and, if so, could they be used to produce a tool to assist health care professionals to accurately determine a timeline of six months or less.
Hospice Clinical Nurse Specialist, Vancouver Home Hospice Program, Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver Home Hospice Team, Vancouver, BC. mark_turris@vrhb.bc.ca
Mark
M
Turris
Chris
C
Rauscher
D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D015415:Biomarkers; D001955:British Columbia; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010166:Palliative Care; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors
D015415:Biomarkers