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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Camden ME — While modern medicine has taken great strides in increasing life expectancy, to date it has not really had the same success with assuring that a longer life remains a quality life. Now clinicians are searching for ways to lessen that gap.
At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Hebrew Senior Life in Boston, Mass., a team of investigators is addressing head-on the questions of advanced directives and living wills, both of which are becoming increasingly more important as tools for managing end-of-life decisions, especially when the patient in question is suffering from advanced dementia.
The program is supported by a grant from the Picker Institute/Gold Foundation Graduate Medical Education Challenge Grant Program, which funds the research and development of innovative projects designed to integrate successful patient-centered care and best practices initiatives into the education of future practicing physicians.
“How do you have the conversation about discussing goals of care with family members of people with dementia who cannot communicate for themselves?” asks Dr. Jennifer Rhodes-Kropf, who is heading up the team that is developing the protocol and videos and teaching modules to accompany it. “Confronted with the need to make a series of complicated and often overwhelming decisions, family members can find the process incredibly stressful.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Rhodes-Kropf said, “trainees and practitioners who are MDs or nurse practitioners and who care for older adults in either an inpatient or an outpatient setting aren’t always encouraged to have these discussions, nor are they taught how to carry them out. But these are conversations that should always occur in the case of advanced dementia, and our goal is to make sure they happen before a crisis.”
One of the videos, “The Conversation Project,” is complete and is being used as a training tool in teaching sessions at BIDMC. Additionally, more than 50 medical students at Tufts University School of Medicine have prepared living wills with a view to understanding the issues a patient’s family members will need to address. When the videos are complete, they will be available for viewing on YouTube.
About Picker Institute: Picker Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the principles of patient-centered care and the global patient-centered care movement. Picker Institute advances patient-centered care through education programs, research grants, annual best-practices recognition awards, publications on patient-centered care topics, research databanks and participation in national and international symposiums.
About the Arnold P. Gold Foundation: The Gold Foundation’s mission is to perpetuate the tradition of the caring doctor by emphasizing the importance of the relationship between the practitioner and the patient, and to help physicians-in-trainingbecome doctors who combine the high tech skills of cutting edge medicine with the high touch skills of effective communication, empathy and compassion.
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