Agnes van der Heide

..We aimed to investigate frequency and characteristics of end-of-life decision-making practices in six European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland...

..It is expected that this study, by providing up-to-date information on and insight into end-of-life care in the Netherlands, will do the same...

..The LCP has an impact on the use of potentially life-shortening medication during the dying phase. Communication about medical decision making tends to be better in the nursing home and at home...

..In 2005, we performed a follow-up study of euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other end-of-life practices...

..Medical decision making is not exclusively based on empirical evidence but also related to morally complex issues such as patient age and social status...

..Previous studies have shown that most people prefer to die at their own home. We investigated whether physicians or bereaved relatives in retrospect differently appreciate the dying of patients in an institution or at home...

..The use of drugs with the intention to hasten death without an explicit request of the patient is part of medical end-of-life practice in the studied countries, regardless of their legal framework, and it occurs in similar fashion...

..Palliative care is often focused on cancer patients. Palliative sedation at the end of life is an intervention to address severe suffering in the last stage of life...

..01). Communication was evaluated similarly for both periods. We conclude that LCP use during the dying phase seems to moderately contribute to lower levels of bereavement in relatives...

..Most end-of-life decision-making studies have, until now, involved either the general population or newborn infants...

..Insight in the relationships of such acceptance, with characteristics considered important for a 'good death', may contribute to the understanding of this liberal attitude...

..Although guidelines advise titration of palliative sedation at the end of life, in practice the depth of sedation can range from mild to deep. We investigated physicians' considerations about the depth of continuous sedation...

..The latter was related to undertaking initiatives to engage in advance care planning. Awareness of differences in attitudes towards life-prolonging treatment within the public may improve communication about appropriate end-of-life care...

..We conclude that comprehensive and interdisciplinary end-of-life care may address patients' needs, but that it simultaneously is a challenge to optimal communication among disciplines and between caregivers and the patient...

..The results emphasize the importance of gaining insight into the patients' suffering to provide meaningful assistance...

..LCP use contributes to the quality of documentation and symptom control...

..Providing all patients who are in the terminal stage of a lethal disease with ANH does not seem to be a widely accepted standard among physicians in Western Europe...

..To determine the extent to which physicians in different countries intend to inform terminal patients and relatives about prognosis, and to identify physician characteristics associated with an active approach to such discussions...

..This study describes the experiences of fatigue and pain in incurable cancer patients and the treatment they receive...

..An important issue in the debate about terminal sedation is the extent to which it differs from euthanasia. We studied clinical differences and similarities between both practices in the Netherlands...

..We compared the results of two recent studies on end-of-life decisions (ELDs) for neonates and infants in Belgium (Flanders) and The Netherlands...

..As the first wave of this relatively young group is growing older, we investigated, for the first time, whether end-of-life decision-making practices for non-western migrants differ from Dutch natives...

..We studied which arguments Dutch physicians use to substantiate their adherence to the criteria and which aspects attract review committees' attention...

..When healthcare professionals establish that a decision would be medically appropriate, the patient's wish will often be an important consideration...

..Our study aimed to increase the insight in medical decision-making about life-prolonging interventions for patients from non-elderly and elderly age groups...

..Terminal sedation in patients nearing death is an important issue related to end-of-life care...

..57%) (p = 0.00). Therapeutic interventions were used in similar frequencies in both groups. We conclude that recognition of the dying phase reduces the number of undesirable diagnostic interventions...

..To study the willingness of Dutch physicians to use potentially life-shortening or lethal drugs for severely ill children...

..Decisions to actively end the lives of infants not dependent on life-sustaining treatment remained stable at 1%. The practice of end-of-life decision-making in neonatology of 2001 has changed little since 1995...

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..Continued monitoring of practices and informing the general public and policymakers about the clinical and ethical consequences of different types of end-of-life decisions is important...

..The objective of our study was to gain insight into how Dutch paediatricians and other physicians treating children feel about the regulation of physician-assisted dying...

..The aims of this study were to describe to what extent cancer patients with incurable cancer report to have been informed about disease-related topics and how they evaluate the quality of the information giving...

..Little is known about the characteristics of dying in different care settings, such as the hospital, the nursing home, or the home-care setting...

..3) To evaluate the impact of the team discussions on the arguments used by physicians for their preferences concerning management...

..end-of-life decision making is an important aspect of end-of-life care that can have a significant impact on the process of dying and patients' comfort in the last days of life...

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..The aim of this review was to give an overview of currently available evidence around opinions and attitudes towards artificial hydration at the end of life...

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..We studied the relationship of patients' attitudes toward treatment with advance care planning and the development of these attitudes after diagnosis of incurable cancer...

..Combining the Dutch comprehensive approach and the Australian analytic approach may serve the interest of patients and their families best...

..The issue of psychiatric consultation with regard to requests for physician-assisted death, especially in patients with a physical disease, needs to be further addressed...

..These complex parental reactions have implications for the counselling strategy...

..To evaluate the practice of continuous palliative sedation after the introduction of a national guideline...

..To date, however, only one case has been reported to this committee. Reporting is essential to obtain societal control and transparency; the possible explanations for this lack of reporting were therefore explored...

..To investigate the reasons behind the sharp upturn of life expectancy in the Netherlands around 2002...

..Eight infants survived; all with severe health problems. CONCLUSION: Life-sustaining neonatal support after non-aggressive obstetric management in the presence of severe fetal malformation has little impact on survival...

..To study the practice of continuous deep sedation in 2005 in the Netherlands and compare it with findings from 2001...

..Palliative sedation is an important topic of medical and ethical debates. Although nurses often participate in its use, little is known about their attitudes and experiences...

..Therefore, it is important to understand the experience of nurses in continuous palliative sedation...

..Guidelines about palliative sedation typically include recommendations to protect the well-being of relatives...

..Observer-based sedation scales have been used to provide a measurable estimate of the comfort of nonalert patients in palliative sedation. However, their usefulness and appropriateness in this setting has not been demonstrated...

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..In this article, we present an ethical framework for facilitating a structured analysis to the extent to which a programme prevents overweight or obesity is ethically acceptable...

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..This study investigates whether Dutch newspaper articles use the term 'euthanasia' according to the legal definition and determines what arguments for and against euthanasia they contain...

..Most studies that have investigated the practice of palliative sedation have focused on physicians' practices and attitudes...

..We give an overview of the purpose, form and contents of such public health frameworks and investigate to which extent they are useful for evaluating programs to prevent overweight and/or obesity...