Integrating palliative care with usual care of diabetic foot wounds
Abstract
Palliative care is a philosophy and a system for deciding care and can be used alone or integrated with usual chronic disease care. Palliative care encompasses end-of-life care. Palliative care aims to enhance quality of life, optimize function and manage symptoms including early in the course of chronic diseases. The purposes of this article are to outline palliative care and discuss how it can be integrated with usual care of diabetic foot wounds. Many people with diabetes who have foot wounds also have other comorbidities and diabetes complications such as cardiovascular and renal disease and depression, which affect medicine and other treatment choices, functional status, surgical risk and quality of life. Two broad of diabetic foot disease exist: those likely to heal but who could still benefit from integrated palliative care such as managing pain and those where healing is unlikely where palliation can be the primary focus. People with diabetes can die suddenly, although the life course is usually long with periods of stable and unstable disease. Many health professionals are reluctant to discuss palliative care or suggest people to document their end-of-life care preferences. If such preferences are not documented, the p...Continue Reading
References
The use of the Karnofsky Performance Scale in determining outcomes and risk in geriatric outpatients
Mortality in adults with and without diabetes in a national cohort of the U.S. population, 1971-1993
Australian Diabetes Foot Network: management of diabetes-related foot ulceration - a clinical update
Citations
Related Concepts
Related Feeds
CV Disorders & Type 2 Diabetes
This feed focuses on the association of cardiovascular diseases in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Autoimmune Diabetes & Tolerance
Patients with type I diabetes lack insulin-producing beta cells due to the loss of immunological tolerance and autoimmune disease. Discover the latest research on targeting tolerance to prevent diabetes.
Cardiovascular Disorder in Diabetes
Diabetes is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disorders and heart failure. Discover the latest research here.