Pediatric palliative care is a field of significant growth as health care systems recognize the benefits of palliative care in areas such as neonatal intensive care, pediatric ICU, and chronic pediatric illnesses. Pediatric Palliative Care, the fourth volume in the HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals series, highlights key issues related to the field. Chapters address pediatric hospice, symptom management, pediatric pain, the neonatal intensive care unit, transitioning goals of care between the emergency department and intensive care unit, and grief and bereavement in pediatric palliative care. The content of the concise, clinically focused volumes in the HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals series is one resource for nurses preparing for specialty certification exams and provides a quick-reference in daily practice. Plentiful tables and patient teaching points make these volumes useful resources for nurses.

Textbook of Palliative Medicine provides an alternative, truly international approach to this rapidly growing specialty. This textbook fills a niche with its evidence-based, multi-professional approach and global perspective ensured by the international team of editors and contributing authors. In the absence of an international curriculum for the study of palliative medicine, this textbook provides essential guidance for those both embarking upon a career in palliative medicine or already established in the field, and the structure and content have been constructed very much with this in mind. With an emphasis on providing a service anywhere in the world, including the important issue of palliative care in the developing nations, Textbook of Palliative Medicine offers a genuine alternative to the narrative approach of its competitors, and is an ideal complement to them. It is essential reading for all palliative care physicians in training and in practice, as well as palliative care nurses and other health professionals in the palliative care team

Pain is a common symptom, yet it is frequently underevaluated and undertreated. It is difficult to define, describe—and sometimes to prove. It’s pain, and suspicions of exaggerations often add further insult to a patients’ injuries. Biobehavioral Approaches to Pain translates this highly subjective experience—and its physical, psychological, social, and cultural dimensions—into practical insights key to transforming the field of pain management. This pathbreaking volume synthesizes a rich knowledge base from across disciplines, including neurobiologic, genetic, biobehavioral, clinical, narrative, substance abuse, health services,ethical and policy perspectives, for a deeper understanding of the impact of pain on individual lives and the larger society. Its international panel of contributors highlights special issues and review best practice guidelines, from placebo effects to cancer, Whiplash Associated Disorders to pain imaging to complementary medicine, phantom limb pain to gene therapies to AIDS. Among the topics covered: The distinction between acute and chronic pain: is it clinically useful? Improving clinical assessment of patients with pain. Age and sex differences in pain. The what, how and why of the placebo and nocebo effect Psychosocial and partner-assisted biopsychosocial interventions for disease-related pain Substance abuse issues in pain treatment. The personal, social and economic costs of chronic pain. Biobehavioral Approaches to Pain offers clinical and health professionals, psychologists, as well as specialists in pain management or palliative care, new directions in their ongoing dialogue with patients. Given the prevalence of pain in the general population, it should also interest researchers and students in the field of public health.

For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.