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Telemedically augmented palliative care

Empowerment for patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers

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Summary

Background

Studies have shown that initiating early palliative care of patients with end-stage cancer can improve their quality of life and decrease symptoms of depression. The challenge is to find an effective way to care for these patients while minimizing the burden on healthcare resources. Telemedicine can play a vital role in solving this problem.

Methods

A user-friendly telemedical device enabling patients encountering medical problems to send a direct request to a palliative care team was developed. A controlled feasibility study was conducted by assigning 15 patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers to receive either standard palliative care or telemedically augmented palliative care. Th quality of life (QoL) was assessed using standardized validated questionnaires as well as frequency and duration of hospital admissions and user satisfaction. The primary goal of this study was to increase the QoL of patients and their family caregivers. The secondary goal of this study was to decrease the frequency and duration of hospital admissions.

Results

This study showed a good feasibility despite the low overall willingness to participate in a relatively “technical” trial. The hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) was significantly lower in the intervention group, suggesting an improved quality of life. Although a decrease in the number of hospital admissions could not be shown, the user satisfaction was very good.

Conclusion

Telemedicine could be a useful tool to enhance the general well-being of palliative oncology patients. Now that the feasibility of this approach has been confirmed, larger studies are needed to verify its positive impact on the QoL.

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Funding

This work was partially supported by the Jubilee Fund of the Austrian National Bank.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dermatology, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Romina Nemecek, Patrick Huber, Christoph Hoeller & Michael Binder

  2. Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital Sankt Josef, Vienna, Austria

    Sophie Schur

  3. Department of Palliative Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Sophie Schur, Eva Katharina Masel & Herbert Watzke

  4. Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Lukas Baumann

Authors
  1. Romina Nemecek
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  2. Patrick Huber
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  3. Sophie Schur
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  4. Eva Katharina Masel
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  5. Lukas Baumann
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  6. Christoph Hoeller
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  7. Herbert Watzke
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  8. Michael Binder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Romina Nemecek.

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Conflict of interest

R. Nemecek, P. Huber, S. Schur, E.K. Masel, L. Baumann, C. Hoeller, H. Watzke, and M. Binder declare that they have no competing interests. We declare that we do not have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. Furthermore, we state that we have full control of all primary data and we agree to allow the journal to review the data if requested.

Ethical standards

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Nemecek, R., Huber, P., Schur, S. et al. Telemedically augmented palliative care. Wien Klin Wochenschr 131, 620–626 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-019-01562-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00508-019-01562-3

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