2019; Volume 20, No 4, April
Announcements & Resources
Each month, we publish a selection of items that may be of interest to our global readership. Contributions are welcomed; we reserve the right to edit content.
- Content should describe opportunities to advance palliative care and improve knowledge, skills, and networking, e.g., education and training, travel grants, access to online resources, etc.
- 150 words maximum.
- Copy deadline: 20th of each month.
- Please submit your copy to the editor together with any JPEG images. We reserve the right to edit content.
Please also consider promoting your education and training events in the IAHPC Global Directory of Education in Palliative Care. It’s quick and easy — just submit your content online.
Announcements
IAHPC’s New Board of Directors Now Online
Photos and bios of IAHPC’s new Board of Directors is now online.
The board now comprises three lifetime members (Derek Doyle, William Farr, and Roger Woodruff), six continuing members (Lukas Radbruch, Liliana De Lima, Mary Callaway, Julia Downing, Chitra Vankatswaran, and Roberto Wenk), and nine new members (Ebtesam [Sammi] Ahmed, Claudia Burlá, Nahla Gafer, Harmala Gupta, Gulnara Kunirova, Eve Namisango, Hibah Osman, Steven Radwany, and Dingle Spence).
The board represents 11 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Jamaica, India, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Sudan, Uganda, and the USA.
Free Course: Supporting caregivers of those with dementia
The U.S.-based Centre to Advance Palliative Care offers a free course for non-members titled, Supporting the Caregivers of People Living with Dementia. The course teaches evidence-based best practices and strategies for assessing caregiver burden and connecting caregivers to support systems.
The course does the following:
- Describes the population of caregivers of people living with dementia, their many responsibilities, and the impact of caregiving on the caregiver.
- Identifies tools that providers can use to assess caregiver well-being and steps that they can take to ensure that caregivers' needs are addressed.
- Describes the importance of providing referrals to community-based support services and understand how to locate local sources of respite care, support groups, caregiver education, safe return programs, and more.
The CAPC course aims to ‘support the vital role that caregivers play, and aid clinicians in learning how to best support them.’ There are more than 16 million family and other unpaid caregivers of people living with dementia in the United States, according to the CAPC.
Start the free course here. This course joins a related one that is also open to the public: An In-Depth Look at Palliative Care and Its Services.
Bilingual Poster to Debunk PC Myths
‘Busting the Myths of Hospice Palliative Care’ is a thrust of Canada’s Hospice Palliative Care Week, taking place 5-11 May 2019. For this year’s campaign, the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) has created both a downloadable English poster and French poster that debunk 10 popular myths about hospice palliative care.
National Hospice Palliative Care Week celebrates palliative care, but also provides a platform to look at shortcomings and create bridges for these gaps. The CHPCA poster responded to a call for an updated ‘Busting the Myths’ campaign. Myths circulate about accessibility, ease of access, illness criteria and cultural misperceptions of hospice palliative care and impacts care that is accessed and provided.
To continue the conversation online, social media users are invited to test (or debunk!) their knowledge by engaging with CHPCA’s Facebook and Twitter questions throughout the week. #BustingtheMyths on Twitter is also an invitation for people to share palliative care myths they have encountered.
Butterfly Children’s Hospices in China Seeks CEO
Butterfly Children’s Hospices, a well-established NGO, is seeking to fill the position of Chief Executive Officer. Its stated mission is to further promote excellence in children’s palliative and hospice care in China (and other similar locations) through leadership, local collaboration, advocacy and education.
The position requires a person fluently bilingual in Mandarin and English, ‘a dynamic and creative leader, with the drive to lead and further develop our dedicated team.’ The role requires high-level consultation with the Chinese government and medical authorities, collaboration and relationship building skills, with philanthropic, corporate, government and community stakeholders both within China and internationally.
Initially, the successful candidate will also be responsible for operational oversight of existing management in the Butterfly Home in Hunan Province, Changsha. To find out more information about the posting, or to submit your CV, contact Lyn Gould at [email protected].
CAPC Posts Jobs in the United States
Are you a health care administrator, physician, nurse practitioner, administrative assistant, counsellor, nurse, care coordinator, or clinical team leader and are seeking other employment in the field of palliative care? Check the Centre to Advance Palliative Care’s job postings.
EUPCA Course Deadline Nears
The deadline to apply for the European Palliative Care Academy Leadership Course, announced in the January IAHPC newsletter, is 9 June 2019. The course is structured to help develop theoretical knowledge and skills in the fields of personal and project development, teamwork, research, and advocacy.
It begins in September and spans four weeks over three years (2019-2021); each week takes place in a different country (Germany, the UK, Poland, Romania). To apply or for more information, visit www.eupca.eu.
Resources
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Do you have a resource that could help others? Send it to the editor: [email protected]
Guidance for Methadone Use at End of Life
A consensus white paper on ‘The Safe and Appropriate Use of Methadone in Hospice and Palliative Care’ written by experts in the field was published in the March issue of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.
The article includes guidance on appropriate candidates for methadone, details on dosing, titration, and monitoring of patients' response to methadone therapy.
The list of potentially appropriate candidates includes those with:
- moderate to severe, or refractory, pain
- significant renal impairment
- need for a long-acting opioid
- poorly controlled opioid-induced adverse effects with other opioids
- a history of dysphagia, inability to swallow, or feeding tube placement
The list of potentially inappropriate candidates includes those who:
- live alone, or have poor cognitive functioning
- lack a knowledgeable practitioner on transfer
- have a history of opioid/medication non-adherence or substance misuse
- have multiple risk factors for methadone toxicity
- have obstructive or central sleep apnea
Download a PDF of the article here.
Updated WHO Guidelines on Management of Cancer Pain
Last year, the World Health Organization updated its previous guidelines on management of cancer pain issued in 1996. The 2018 ‘Guidelines for the pharmacologic and radiotherapeutic management of cancer pain in adults and adolescents’ provide evidence-based guidance to initiating and managing cancer pain.
The aim of the guidelines is to provide guidance to health-care providers (i.e. the end-users of these guidelines: physicians, nurses, pharmacists and caregivers) on the adequate relief of pain associated with cancer. The guidelines also assist policy-makers, program managers and public health personnel to create and facilitate appropriately balanced policies on opioids and prescribing regulations for effective and safe cancer pain management.
The clinical guidelines and recommendations are organized into three focal areas:
- Analgesia of cancer pain: This addresses the choice of analgesic medicine when initiating pain relief and the choice of opioid for maintenance of pain relief, including optimization of rescue medication, route of administration, and opioid rotation and cessation.
- Adjuvant medicines for cancer pain: This includes the use of steroids, antidepressants and anticonvulsants as adjuvant medicines.
- Management of pain related to bone metastases: This incorporates the use of bisphosphonates and radiotherapy to manage bone metastases.
The document is freely available as a PDF here.
PC Infographic in Multiple Languages
The World Health Organization has an infographic, suitable for posting, in several languages. ‘Improving Access to Palliative Care’ is available in Arabic, Chinese Farsi French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish as well as English.
The infographic addresses the questions:
- What is palliative care?
- When is palliative care needed?
- Who needs it? What are the gaps and barriers?
- What can countries do?
You can download it from the WHO website here.
Added This Month to the IAHPC Calendar of Events
- HCA Paediatric Palliative Care Symposium: Making Every Day a Good Day for the Child, 15 March 2019, Singapore.
- HCA Paediatric Palliative Care Public Forum: Talking to Your Child about Illness, Death, and Dying, 16 March 2019, Singapore.
- Open-ended Working Group on Ageing 10th session, 15-18 April 2019, New York, New York, USA. (Open to NGO organizations and national human rights institutions. Accreditation.)
- 1st Annual Big Sky Palliative Care Conference, 10-11 May 2019, Billings, Montana, USA.
- VIII Intensive Course of Palliative Care. Extendiendo el Impacto de los Cuidados Paliativos a Nuevas Poblaciones, 13-14 May 2019, Santiago de Chile, Chile.
Find the workshop, seminar, congress, or conference that speaks to you in the IAHPC Calendar of Events, updated monthly, that lists activities of special interest to those who work in palliative care. Or submit an event for consideration; it’s free!
