title: Outcome measures for palliative oxygen therapy: relevance and practical utility.
abstract: Dyspnea is a common symptom in many advanced malignant and non-malignant diseases and often is refractory to the usual therapies. In such circumstances palliative care approaches are necessary and among them palliative care oxygen therapy can be applied although currently its effectiveness is rather uncertain. Palliative oxygen therapy can be given on either continuous basis or on demand. Often the continuous palliative oxygen therapy is seen as long-term oxygen therapy although their aims are rather different. Palliative oxygen therapy was evaluated in populations with mixed underlying diseases, with outcome measures not only the most appropriate for the setting and therefore these limitations might have influenced the overall perceived therapeutic benefit. Therefore an evaluation of this method in subsets defined based on the etiology and pathogenic mechanisms and with appropriate outcome measures would help to better define the criteria for its indication and would increase its acceptability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Interdisciplinarity, Palliative Care Nursing, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, "Grigore T Popa" , 16 Universitatii Str, Iasi, 700115 , Romania.
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Antoniu
authors.forename: Florin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mihaltan
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D004417:Dyspnea / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010100:Oxygen / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D010166:Palliative Care; D029424:Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / Q000628:therapy; D011788:Quality of Life; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000628:therapy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; lung cancer; oxygen therapy; palliative care dyspnea