With a theme of ‘Fit for the Future’, the 13th Australian Palliative Care Conference utilised a coordinated and multifaceted social media strategy to enhance the delegates’ experience and reach new audiences globally. This was achieved through the concerted efforts of team Palliverse (@Palliverse) and other key individuals, including Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair). Continue reading
Here’s the latest collection of reads for your weekend, with palliative care news from around the world, research and social media advice, and a palliative pet care story. As always, please enjoy and share your thoughts in the comments below.
Today is World Refugee Day, at a time when world refugee numbers are at their highest since WWII. A new Palliative Care in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (PALCHE) network has launched to help address the unmet palliative care needs of the world’s >60 million refugees. Read about it (and find out how to get involved) at ehospice.
Happy 10th Birthday, Pallimed! Continue reading
Hi and welcome to the first “Elsewhere in the Palliverse” for 2015. There is an (unintentional) geriatric flavour to this week’s links. This is possibly because today marks the end of a six-month geriatrics rotation for me, or maybe because another year has ended and birthday has passed. Regardless, I hope that Palliverse readers enjoy the following links:
Dementia researchers Muireann Irish and Rebekah Ahmed give their take on the new film adaptation of Still Alice, a novel about a 50 year old woman who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Have you read the book? Will you see the movie? (Still Alice: A rare look at how dementia steals memories from millions – The Conversation)
Professor Rod McLeod gives some background on his article in this month’s European Journal of Palliative Care, ‘Making it easier to die at home – an innovative programme in New South Wales, Australia’. (Making it easier to die at home – EAPC Blog)
Social media is a broad term that includes all sorts of online platforms and interactions, from the blogs* I follow (and share) via my RSS reader, to Youtube videos, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, slideshare and beyond. This week’s “Elsewhere in the Palliverse” visits the intersection of social media, palliative care and research.
*including palliverse.com, of course!
Dear Friends,
Another week has passed and there is much to tell, but before we get into let spare a quick (and envious) thought for Elissa who can’t be with us to post today because she is in the middle of a well earned holiday.
Now down to business.
This clip from the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) describes a novel analogy for our selves that works neatly with a description of palliative care.
The animation is part of a suite of resources that the CAPC has made available here. Continue reading
This TED Talk “How Not To Be Ignorant About the World” by Dr Hans Rosling (@HansRosling – Swedish medical doctor, statistician and Professor of International Health) and his son Ola Rosling is an entertaining and eye-opening look at how our biases and intuition lead to misconceptions. (For the record, I vote like a Swede – not a chimp.)
The beautiful poem Japanese Maple by the Clive James (written while he is dying) has been all over my social media feeds this week. Here’s The Guardian‘s take on why it’s resonating with people.
Bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel writes in the Atlantic on Why I Hope to Die at 75. And here’s a rebuttal from Alex Smith at GeriPal.
Making a case for the integration of palliative care in policies on ageing and dementia – a European perspective (EAPC Blog)
More on dementia – Ageism and death anxiety (ehospice UK)
In Australia: Call for a Royal Commission into Nursing Home Care (ABC Radio National)
And a more positive look at residential aged care: A Nursing Home Can Be a New Beginning (Adele Horin)
An interview with the Groundswell Project (Dying Wishes – Australian Ageing Agenda)
The NHS (UK) has an End of Life Guidance app! (iTunes store)
The Institute of Medicine (US) released a report entitled “Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life.” There’s been a lot of discussion about it on palliative care social media and the mainstream media over the past week. Pallimed has a nice summary.
Terminally ill, but constantly hospitalised. (NPR)
Many Palliverse readers would be able to relate to this – The reality of nurses completing their own research (EAPC Blog)
If you haven’t already, consider signing the Montreal Declaration for palliative care (AHPCA Blog)
Also consider crowdfunding Little Stars, a movie about paediatric palliative care.
palliverse.com 