End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice

Background. Chronic heart failure is common, particularly in older individuals, and comorbidities are frequent. Patients with end stage heart failure can be highly symptomatic and require careful monitoring and treatment adjustment to improve symptoms. Objective. This article summarises the fundamen...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Davidson, Patricia, Macdonald, P., Newton, Phillip, Currow, D.
Format: Journal Article
Published: The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.racgp.org.au/afp/201012/201012davidson.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/27802
_version_ 1848752364097372160
author Davidson, Patricia
Macdonald, P.
Newton, Phillip
Currow, D.
author_facet Davidson, Patricia
Macdonald, P.
Newton, Phillip
Currow, D.
author_sort Davidson, Patricia
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Background. Chronic heart failure is common, particularly in older individuals, and comorbidities are frequent. Patients with end stage heart failure can be highly symptomatic and require careful monitoring and treatment adjustment to improve symptoms. Objective. This article summarises the fundamentals of implementing palliative care in general practice and provides guidelines on caring patients with chronic heart failure at the end of life. Discussion. The high mortality in chronic heart failure underscores the importance of effective communication, symptom management and advance care planning. The unpredictability and uncertainty around the timing of death mean that individuals, and their families, may be less likely to have an understanding of their prognosis or have access to supportive and palliative care. Ideally, patients with symptomatic chronic heart failure should be managed in collaboration with a multidisciplinary heart failure program. Symptom management can be achieved by additive therapies and access to specialist palliative care services should be considered when the symptom burden is high.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T08:07:26Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-27802
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T08:07:26Z
publishDate 2010
publisher The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-278022017-01-30T13:01:16Z End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice Davidson, Patricia Macdonald, P. Newton, Phillip Currow, D. heart failure general practice palliative care Background. Chronic heart failure is common, particularly in older individuals, and comorbidities are frequent. Patients with end stage heart failure can be highly symptomatic and require careful monitoring and treatment adjustment to improve symptoms. Objective. This article summarises the fundamentals of implementing palliative care in general practice and provides guidelines on caring patients with chronic heart failure at the end of life. Discussion. The high mortality in chronic heart failure underscores the importance of effective communication, symptom management and advance care planning. The unpredictability and uncertainty around the timing of death mean that individuals, and their families, may be less likely to have an understanding of their prognosis or have access to supportive and palliative care. Ideally, patients with symptomatic chronic heart failure should be managed in collaboration with a multidisciplinary heart failure program. Symptom management can be achieved by additive therapies and access to specialist palliative care services should be considered when the symptom burden is high. 2010 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/27802 http://www.racgp.org.au/afp/201012/201012davidson.pdf The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners fulltext
spellingShingle heart failure
general practice
palliative care
Davidson, Patricia
Macdonald, P.
Newton, Phillip
Currow, D.
End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice
title End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice
title_full End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice
title_fullStr End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice
title_full_unstemmed End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice
title_short End stage heart failure patients: Palliative care in general practice
title_sort end stage heart failure patients: palliative care in general practice
topic heart failure
general practice
palliative care
url http://www.racgp.org.au/afp/201012/201012davidson.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/27802