Palliative care. A guide for doctors and family nurses and patients' families

A patient with a terminal illness requires specific, individualised care in order to keep him or her active for as long as possible, taking into account the preferences and wishes of the patient and his or her family. Patients in the end-stage of their disease usually remain under the care of their general practitioner, including increasingly under the specialist care of palliative care teams, and mostly prefer to die at home. GP care should therefore not only consist of purely medical support, but also of non-medical measures, such as taking more time to talk to the patient, providing daily support and psychological care. The latter should also be extended to family members of patients. The guide, whose authors have many years of experience in working with chronically ill patients, is a valuable, systematised source of basic knowledge not only for family doctors, patients' families, medical students, but also other medical professionals. The book contains printed documents, ordinances, links, information, sources for obtaining instructional videos on caring for patients at home, and full versions of scales that are essential in assessing a patient's overall functional status and quality of life and symptom severity.