Guidelines for Managing Diabetes at the End of Life

📖 The Scoop

The focus of the project was people with diabetes requiring palliative care in the last stages of life. The main goal during these phases is to improve and maintain the individual's quality of life and and dignity while positively influencing the course of the life-limiting illness through appropriately assessing and managing symptoms and contributing disease processes to achieve optimal outcomes. Importantly, palliative care now includes managing chronic diseases such as diabetes. In this context, optimal outcomes include ensuring the patient is comfortable, alleviating pain and unpleasant symptoms, and enabling a peaceful death. However, diabetes-specific care goals and outcomes at the end of life are not well described. These Guidelines were developed in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council Guidelines for Developing Clinical Practice Guidelines. The overall aim of the project was to enhance the quality of palliative care delivered to people with diabetes in the end stages of life. The specific objectives were to develop guidelines for managing diabetes in patients receiving palliative care with a focus on the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaborative (PCOC) end of life stages; implement the Guidelines in a palliative care setting; and assess the effectiveness and acceptability of the Guidelines to palliative care clinicians and people with diabetes and their carers and further refine them as appropriate.

Genre: Health & Fitness / General (fancy, right?)