Excellent end of life care for people with heart failure is challenging but possible. Failure to address this aspect of care has serious consequences for patients, their families, clinicians and the use of health resources. Heart Failure: From Advanced Disease to Bereavement illustrates the complexity and importance of end of life care for patients with advanced heart failure. This book is a pocket reference for everyday use in the clinic, ward or home visit for all doctors, nurses and AHPs caring for people with advanced heart failure. It outlines the underlying pathophysiology of heart failure, summarises standard pharmacological and device therapy, and sets the context of the challenges resulting from an unpredictable course of disease. In easily digestible summaries, this book presents practical advice about how and when to integrate a palliative care approach alongside standard heart failure management, how to communicate honestly in the face of uncertainty, the rationalisation of medication and device therapies at the end of life, symptom control, care for the dying, and care after death. * A succinct, concise, and user-friendly format facilitates quick acess to information access to information * A portable, practical, and accessible handbook on a complex issue * Written by experts in the fields of cardiology and palliative medicine Miriam Johnson , Senior Lecturer in Palliative Medicine, Hull-York Medical School (HYMS) and Honorary Consultant in Palliative Medicine to St. Catherine's hospice, Scarborough and Scarborough and District NHS Trust, UK, Karen Hogg , Consultant Cardiologist, Glasgow Royal Infirmary & Golden Jubilee National Hospital, UK, and James Beattie , Consultant Cardiologist, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, UK Edited by Max Watson , Belfast City Hospital (Research Fellow), Northern Ireland Hospice Care (Locum Consultant Palliative Medicine), UK CONTENTS 1: The challenge of patients with heart failure: barriers in accessing supportive and palliative care 2: The physiology of patients with heart failure: the origin of symptoms and rationale for treatment 3: Prognostication and disease trajectory 4: Communication in heart failure 5: Diagnosing end stage heart disease 6: Integrating supportive and palliative care 7: Optimising management in end stage heart failure 8: Advance care planning 9: Management of pain 10: Symptoms other than pain 11: Psychological and psychosocial aspects of heart failure 12: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation and device therapy at the end of life 13: Care of the dying 14: Spiritualty and religious care 15: Supporting carers
