The Value of Rehabilitation Medicine for Patients Receiving Palliative Care.

BACKGROUND: Rehabilitation medicine is a multidisciplinary field aimed at improving patients' quality of life by improving function. Patients receiving palliative care frequently share common symptoms including fatigue, decreased functional independence, mood disorders, pain, and breathlessness. Many rehabilitation interventions can improve these symptoms. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the scope and effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions and exercise programs in improving quality of life and distressing symptoms in patients receiving palliative care. METHODS: We conducted a literature review of cancer rehabilitation topics and techniques specifically applied to patients with life-limiting conditions. Exercise and other rehabilitation interventions were analyzed for their effects on common symptoms and disabilities experienced by this patient population. CONCLUSION: Current available literature supports the use of exercise programs and rehabilitation interventions to improve fatigue, mood, functional independence, breathlessness, and pain. Rehabilitation and palliative care practitioners share many goals in their approach to patient care and augment one another well. Palliative care providers should consider referral to physiatry (physical medicine and rehabilitation) to help optimize patients' quality of life.

Review of secondary health conditions in postpolio syndrome: prevalence and effects of aging.

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to better understand the prevalence and the severity of secondary health conditions in individuals with postpolio syndrome (PPS) as well as the association between these conditions and aging. DESIGN: A scoping literature review was conducted searching electronic databases for studies published from 1986 to 2011. The scoping review provided information regarding the prevalence and associations of secondary health conditions in PPS with age or other duration-related variables. RESULTS: The findings indicate that (1) individuals with PPS experience a number of serious secondary health conditions; (2) the most common conditions or symptoms are fatigue, pain, respiratory and sleep complaints, and increased risk for falls; (3) reports of the associations between the frequency or the severity of conditions and age-related factors are variable, perhaps because of methodological inconsistencies between studies; and (4) there is a marked lack of longitudinal research examining the natural course of health conditions in people aging with PPS. CONCLUSIONS: Longitudinal research is needed to understand the course of health conditions and the impact of multiple secondary conditions in people aging with PPS. Efforts are also needed to develop and test the efficacy of interventions to prevent these secondary health conditions or reduce their negative impact.