Early palliative care perceptions by patients with cancer and primary caregivers: metaphorical language.

OBJECTIVE: This article reports on the results of an analysis of metaphorical language used by patients diagnosed with advanced cancer and their caregivers receiving early palliative care (EPC). METHODS: Data were collected through a pen-and-paper questionnaire on respondents' perceptions of the disease, its treatment and their idea of death, before and after receiving EPC. The data were analysed by identifying all metaphorical uses of language, following the 'metaphor identification procedure' proposed by the Praggjelaz Group. RESULTS: Metaphors were used from a variety of semantic fields. EPC was described using spiritual terms, to indicate that this approach was instrumental in 'restoring life', 'producing hope' and making patients feel 'accompanied'. The most recurrent metaphors were those referring to light and salvation; spatial metaphors were used to describe the treatment and the hospital as a 'safe haven' and 'an oasis of peace'. Patients and caregivers were overall consistent in the aforementioned ways of referring to illness and treatment; caregivers were more likely than patients to use war metaphors, although their use overall was rare. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that EPC is perceived positively by patients and their caregivers and provide insights regarding the manner in which EPC could be presented to patients, caregivers and the public.

Positive Psychological Well-Being in Early Palliative Care: A Narrative Review of the Roles of Hope, Gratitude, and Death Acceptance.

In the advanced cancer setting, low psychological functioning is a common symptom and its deleterious impact on health outcomes is well established. Yet, the beneficial role of positive psychological well-being (PPWB) on several clinical conditions has been demonstrated. Early palliative care (EPC) is a recent value-based model consisting of the early integration of palliative care into standard care for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. While the late palliative care primary offers short-term interventions, predominantly pharmacological in nature and limited to physical symptom reduction, EPC has the potential to act over a longer term, enabling specific interventions aimed at promoting PPWB. This narrative review examines nine English studies retrieved from MEDLINE/PubMed, published up to October 2023, focusing on EPC and three dimensions of PPWB: hope, gratitude, and death acceptance. These dimensions consistently emerge in our clinical experience within the EPC setting for advanced cancer patients and appear to contribute to its clinical efficacy. The choice of a narrative review reflects the novelty of the topic, the limited existing research, and the need to incorporate a variety of methodological approaches for a comprehensive exploration.

Neural correlates of word processing influenced by painful primes.

The administration of painful primes has been shown to influence the perception of successively presented semantic stimuli. Painful primes lead to more negative valence ratings of pain-related, negative, and positive words than no prime. This effect was greater for pain-related than negative words. The identities of this effect's neural correlates remain unknown. In this EEG experiment, 48 healthy subjects received noxious electrical stimuli of moderate intensity. During this priming, they were presented with adjectives of variable valence (pain-related, negative, positive, and neutral). The triggered event-related potentials were analyzed during N1 (120-180 ms), P2 (170-260 ms), P3 (300-350 ms), N400 (370-550 ms), and two late positive complex components (LPC1 [650-750 ms] and LPC2 [750-1000 ms]). Larger event-related potentials were found for negative and pain-related words compared to positive words in later components (N400, LPC1, and LPC2), mainly in the frontal regions. Early components (N1, P2) were less affected by the word category but were by the prime condition (N1 amplitude was smaller with than without painful stimulation, P2 amplitude was larger with than without painful stimulation). Later components (LPC1, LPC2) were not affected by the prime condition. An interaction effect involving prime and word category was found on the behavioral level but not the electrophysiological level. This finding indicates that the interaction effect does not directly translate from the behavioral to the electrophysiological level. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.

Caregiver's quality of life in advanced cancer: validation of the construct in a real-life setting of early palliative care.

Introduction: Early palliative care (EPC) improves the quality of life (QoL) of advanced cancer patients and their caregivers. The increasingly widespread use of this care model requires the development of measures supporting its interventions. Although the construct of patient's QoL has been extensively investigated and several QoL measures have been further validated, there is a paucity of data concerning the QoL of the caregiver. In 2018, McDonald and colleagues addressed this issue by interviewing 23 primary caregivers of advanced cancer patients who participated in an EPC randomized clinical trial to understand their perspective on the QoL construct. The Authors identified six major dimensions associated with the construct of caregiver's QoL. The present retrospective study aimed to validate these dimensions on a larger sample and in a real-life EPC setting. Methods: Previously collected reports from 137 primary caregivers of advanced cancer patients on EPC answering questions about their experience with this care model were qualitatively analyzed through a deductive, thematic approach to identify and confirm the six dimensions constituting the construct of interest based on McDonald's and colleagues' results. Results: The six dimensions ("living in the patient's world", "burden of illness and caregiving", "assuming the caregiver role", "renegotiating relationships", "confronting mortality", and "maintaining resilience") were consistently found in the reports from primary caregivers in a real-life EPC setting, confirming to be significant themes associated to their QoL. Conclusion: A definite and recurrent construct of primary caregiver's QoL as described by McDonald and colleagues was also found in a larger sample and in a real-life EPC setting. Thus it may lay the groundwork for the development of a dedicated questionnaire.

Words hurt: common and distinct neural substrates underlying nociceptive and semantic pain.

Introduction: Recent studies have shown that processing semantic pain, such as words associated with physical pain, modulates pain perception and enhances activity in regions of the pain matrix. A direct comparison between activations due to noxious stimulation and processing of words conveying physical pain may clarify whether and to what extent the neural substrates of nociceptive pain are shared by semantic pain. Pain is triggered also by experiences of social exclusion, rejection or loss of significant others (the so-called social pain), therefore words expressing social pain may modulate pain perception similarly to what happens with words associated with physical pain. This event-related fMRI study aims to compare the brain activity related to perceiving nociceptive pain and that emerging from processing semantic pain, i.e., words related to either physical or social pain, in order to identify common and distinct neural substrates. Methods: Thirty-four healthy women underwent two fMRI sessions each. In the Semantic session, participants were presented with positive words, negative pain-unrelated words, physical pain-related words, and social pain-related words. In the Nociceptive session, participants received cutaneous mechanical stimulations that could be either painful or not. During both sessions, participants were asked to rate the unpleasantness of each stimulus. Linguistic stimuli were also rated in terms of valence, arousal, pain relatedness, and pain intensity, immediately after the Semantic session. Results: In the Nociceptive session, the 'nociceptive stimuli' vs. 'non-nociceptive stimuli' contrast revealed extensive activations in SI, SII, insula, cingulate cortex, thalamus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In the Semantic session, words associated with social pain, compared to negative pain-unrelated words, showed increased activity in most of the same areas, whereas words associated with physical pain, compared to negative pain-unrelated words, only activated the left supramarginal gyrus and partly the postcentral gyrus. Discussion: Our results confirm that semantic pain partly shares the neural substrates of nociceptive pain. Specifically, social pain-related words activate a wide network of regions, mostly overlapping with those pertaining to the affective-motivational aspects of nociception, whereas physical pain-related words overlap with a small cluster including regions related to the sensory-discriminative aspects of nociception. However, most regions of overlap are differentially activated in different conditions.

Electrophysiological correlates of semantic pain processing in the affective priming.

Introduction: Pain plays a fundamental role in the well-being of the individual, and its semantic content may have specific properties compared to other negative domains (i.e., fear and anger) which allows the cognitive system to detect it with priority. Considering the influence of the affective context in which stimuli (targets) are evaluated, it is possible that their valence could be differentially processed if preceded by negative stimuli (primes) associated with pain than negative stimuli not associated with pain. Thus, the present study aims to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of the implicit processing of words with pain content by using an affective priming paradigm. Methods: Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants were presented with positive and negative word targets (not associated with pain) that were preceded by positive, negative (not associated with pain), and pain word primes. Participants were asked to judge the valence of the target word. Results: Results showed faster reaction times (RTs) in congruent conditions, especially when the negative target was preceded by a pain prime rather than a positive one. ERPs analyses showed no effect of pain at an early-stage processing (N400), but a larger waveform when the pain prime preceded the positive prime on the LPP. Discussion: These results reaffirm the importance that valence has in establishing the priority with which stimuli are encoded in the environment and highlight the role that pain has in the processing of stimuli, supporting the hypothesis according to which the valence and the semantics of a stimulus interact with each other generating a specific response for each type of emotion.

Early palliative care versus usual haematological care in multiple myeloma: retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: Although early palliative care (EPC) is beneficial in acute myeloid leukaemia, little is known about EPC value in multiple myeloma (MM). We compared quality indicators for palliative and end-of-life (EOL) care in patients with MM receiving EPC with those of patients who received usual haematological care (UHC). METHODS: This observational, retrospective study was based on 290 consecutive patients with MM. The following indicators were abstracted: providing psychological support, assessing/managing pain, discussing goals of care, promoting advance care plan, accessing home care services; no anti-MM treatment within 14 and 30 days and hospice length of stay >7 days before death; no cardiopulmonary resuscitation, no intubation, <2 hospitalisations and emergency department visits within 30 days before death. Comparisons were performed using unadjusted and confounder-adjusted regression models. RESULTS: 55 patients received EPC and 231 UHC. Compared with UHC patients, EPC patients had a significantly higher number of quality indicators of care (mean 2.62±1.25 vs 1.12±0.95; p<0.0001)); a significant reduction of pain intensity over time (p<0.01) and a trend towards reduced aggressiveness at EOL, with the same survival (5.3 vs 5.46 years; p=0.74)). CONCLUSIONS: Our data support the value of integrating EPC into MM routine practice and lay the groundwork for future prospective comparative studies.

Stigma of Palliative Care among Patients with Advanced Cancer and Their Caregivers on Early Palliative Care.

The early referral to palliative care (PC) represents a successful value-based model with proven benefits regarding the quality of life and clinical outcomes for advanced cancer patients and their caregivers. Yet, its provision remains typically confined to the last weeks of life as per the historical, late PC model. The stigma according to which PC represents end-of-life care has been identified as the root of the problem. To explore the presence and effects of the stigma in a clinical context, we surveyed 78 patients and 110 caregivers (mean age: 71.7 and 60.7, respectively) on early PC to study what their perception of PC was before their direct experience. The responses were analyzed through a qualitative descriptive approach. The participants explicitly mentioned a lack of knowledge about PC (53% of the sample), which they identified also among physicians and the population (13%); an identification of PC with the late PC model (53%); and a detrimental reaction to the proposal of an early PC referral (83%). However, the participants explicitly mentioned that a direct experience of early PC allowed for an acquired awareness of early PC meaning and benefits (52%), as well as a comprehension of its differences with late PC (34%); the regret for the delayed referral (8%); the perception of the word "palliative" as a barrier (21%); and the belief that early PC should be part of the cancer routine practice (25%). A comprehensive multi-level intervention is necessary for a widespread understanding of the essence of anticipated PC.

Neural correlates of emotional valence for faces and words.

Stimuli with negative emotional valence are especially apt to influence perception and action because of their crucial role in survival, a property that may not be precisely mirrored by positive emotional stimuli of equal intensity. The aim of this study was to identify the neural circuits differentially coding for positive and negative valence in the implicit processing of facial expressions and words, which are among the main ways human beings use to express emotions. Thirty-six healthy subjects took part in an event-related fMRI experiment. We used an implicit emotional processing task with the visual presentation of negative, positive, and neutral faces and words, as primary stimuli. Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) of the fMRI data was used to test effective brain connectivity within two different anatomo-functional models, for the processing of words and faces, respectively. In our models, the only areas showing a significant differential response to negative and positive valence across both face and word stimuli were early visual cortices, with faces eliciting stronger activations. For faces, DCM revealed that this effect was mediated by a facilitation of activity in the amygdala by positive faces and in the fusiform face area by negative faces; for words, the effect was mainly imputable to a facilitation of activity in the primary visual cortex by positive words. These findings support a role of early sensory cortices in discriminating the emotional valence of both faces and words, where the effect may be mediated chiefly by the subcortical/limbic visual route for faces, and rely more on the direct thalamic pathway to primary visual cortex for words.

Early palliative care for solid and blood cancer patients and caregivers: Quantitative and qualitative results of a long-term experience as a case of value-based medicine.

Introduction: Cancer patients and their caregivers have substantial unmet needs, that negatively impact the clinical outcome and quality of life. However, interventions aimed to address such needs are still suboptimal, failing to answer the recent healthcare call for the adoption of value-based models of care. In the case of incurable oncologic and hematologic cancers, a value-based model of care should plan advanced care on patients' needs and include the quality of death as an outcome. The integration of early palliative care into standard oncologic care for patients with advanced cancers represents a recent innovative model of assistance whose benefits for patients and caregivers are now widely recognized. The key elements underlying the reasons behind these benefits are the multidisciplinary collaboration (teamwork), an honest and empathetic communication between the early palliative care team, the patient, and the caregiver (rapport building), and the ability to detect changes in the physical/psychosocial wellbeing of the patient, along the whole disease trajectory (constant monitoring). Methods: This community case study documents the quantitative and qualitative results of a long term clinical and research experience in delivering early palliative care service to address both solid and blood cancer patients' and their primary caregivers' needs. Results: Data showed decreased use of chemotherapy, blood transfusions and referral to intensive care units near the end of life; increased life expectancy; improved symptom burden and mood; increased frequency of goals-of-care and advanced care planning conversations. Hope perception among bereaved caregivers was associated with resilience and realistic expectations raising from honest communication with the early palliative care team and appreciation toward the model. Patients and caregivers perceived the possibility of a good death as realistic and not as an unlikely event as it was for patients and caregivers on standard oncologic care only. Gratitude expressions toward the model and the team were frequently identified in their reports and positively associated with communication and spirituality. Conclusions: These findings are discussed in the context of an updated literature review regarding value-based care and suggest that early palliative care integrated into standard oncology care may be considered as an effective model of value-based care.

Perceptions of Death Among Patients with Advanced Cancer Receiving Early Palliative Care and Their Caregivers: Results from a Mixed-Method Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Oncologists are often concerned that talking about death with patients may hinder their relationship. However, the views of death held by patients have not been thoroughly investigated. This study aimed to describe the perception of death among patients with advanced cancer receiving early palliative care (EPC) and their caregivers. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed on 2 databases: (a) transcripts of open-ended questionnaires administered to 130 cancer patients receiving EPC with a mean age of 68.4 years and to 115 primary caregivers of patients on EPC with a mean age of 56.8; (b) texts collected from an Italian forum, containing instances of web-mediated interactions between patients and their caregivers. RESULTS: Quantitative analysis shows that: (a) patients and caregivers are not afraid of speaking about death; (b) patients and caregivers on EPC use the word "death" significantly more than patients on standard oncology care (SOC) and their caregivers (P < .0001). For both participants on EPC and SOC, the adjectives and verbs associated with the word "death" have positive connotations; however, these associations are significantly more frequent for participants on EPC (verbs, Ps < .0001; adjectives, Ps < .003). Qualitative analysis reveals that these positive connotations refer to an actual, positive experience of the end of life in the EPC group and a wish or a negated event in the SOC group. CONCLUSIONS: EPC interventions, along with proper physician-patient communication, may be associated with an increased acceptance of death in patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers.

Gratitude among advanced cancer patients and their caregivers: The role of early palliative care.

Objective: A cancer diagnosis represents a unique trauma, given its life-threatening, multidimensional, and uncertain nature. Gratitude is a construct representing the emotional state that arises when individuals recognize that a benefit has been received as a result of someone else's action or a spiritual entity's intervention. Based on the positive psychological wellbeing, gratitude has been associated with improved health outcomes even in the disease setting. Thus, the models of care that foster gratitude should be adopted in the clinical context. This study aims to explore whether and how gratitude may originate in patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers undergoing early palliative care (EPC). Methods: We analyzed 251 reports from 133 patients and 118 caregivers describing their clinical experience in two EPC units. The sources of gratitude were identified and ranked based on their frequencies. Words expressing gratitude and words referring to communication and spirituality were collected by means of the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software and correlated. Results: In total, 123 (92.5%) of 133 patients' and 97 (82.2%) of 118 caregivers' reports, respectively, included explicit or implicit expressions of gratitude. Gratitude was associated specifically with successful physical symptom management, emotional support, improved attitude toward death, better information, humanity, and the familiar environment. The use of words of gratitude in patients' reports was positively correlated with the use of words referring to communication (r = .215, p = .026) and spirituality (r = .612, p <.001). Conclusion: Our results suggest that interventions within the EPC model based on doctor-patient-caregiver communication may allow patients and caregivers to experience a feeling of gratitude, and this may represent a resource to be exploited to improve their physical and psychosocial wellbeing.

Perceptions of Hope Among Bereaved Caregivers of Cancer Patients Who Received Early Palliative Care: A Content and Lexicographic Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Oncologists' fear of taking away hope from patients when proposing early palliative care (EPC) is a barrier to the implementation of this model. This study explores hope perceptions among bereaved caregivers of onco-hematologic patients who received EPC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Open-ended questionnaires were administered to 36 primary caregivers of patients who received EPC (26 solid and 10 hematologic cancer patients; mean age: 51.4 years, range age: 20-74), at 2 cancer centers, 2 months to 3 years after a patient death. Definitions of hope in the caregivers' narratives were analyzed through a directed approach to content analysis. Results were complemented with automated lexicographic analysis. RESULTS: Caregivers perceived hope mainly as resilience and as expectations based on what they were told about the patients' clinical conditions. Their hope was bolstered by trusting relationships with the healthcare teams. EPC interventions were recalled as the major support for hope, both during the illness and after the death of the patient. The automated quantitative lexical analysis provided deeper insights into the links between hope, truth, and trust. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that telling the truth about an incurable onco-hematologic disease and beginning EPC might be the combination of factors triggering hope in the setting of incurable cancer.

Early Palliative Care in Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

BACKGROUND: Several novel targeted therapies seem to improve the outcome of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. Nonetheless, the 5-year survival rate remains below 40%, and the trajectory of the disease remains physically and emotionally challenging, with little time to make relevant decisions. For patients with advanced solid tumors, the integration of early palliative care (EPC) with standard oncologic care a few weeks after diagnosis has demonstrated several benefits. However, this model is underutilized in patients with hematologic malignancies. METHODS: In this article, we analyze the palliative care (PC) needs of AML patients, examine the operational aspects of an integrated model, and review the evidence in favor of EPC integration in the AML course. RESULTS: AML patients have a high burden of physical and psychological symptoms and high use of avoidant coping strategies. Emerging studies, including a phase III randomized controlled trial, have reported that EPC is feasible for inpatients and outpatients, improves quality of life (QoL), promotes adaptive coping, reduces psychological symptoms, and enhances the quality of end-of-life care. CONCLUSIONS: EPC should become the new standard of care for AML patients. However, this raises issues about the urgent development of adequate programs of education to increase timely access to PC.

Impact of motor stroke on novel and conventional action metaphor comprehension.

Previous studies indicate that damage to motor brain regions impacts comprehension of literal action-related language. However, whether such damage also impacts comprehension of action-metaphors remains unknown. Such a finding would support the notion that metaphors are grounded in sensorimotor representations. Here we tested this hypothesis by comparing comprehension of novel, conventional, and frozen action and non-action metaphors in 14 right-handed adults with right-sided mild to moderate paresis following left hemisphere motor stroke and 23 neurotypical participants. Consistent with our hypothesis, results indicated that only in the stroke group, accuracy for action metaphors was significantly lower than for non-action metaphors. Further, in the stroke group, accuracy was significantly worse in the following pattern: novel < conventional < frozen action metaphors. These results strongly support the notion that motor-related brain regions are important not only for literal action-related language comprehension, but also for action-related metaphor comprehension, especially for less familiar metaphors.

Early palliative/supportive care in acute myeloid leukaemia allows low aggression end-of-life interventions: observational outpatient study.

OBJECTIVES: Early palliative supportive care has been associated with many advantages in patients with advanced cancer. However, this model is underutilised in patients with haematological malignancies. We investigated the presence and described the frequency of quality indicators for palliative care and end-of-life care in a cohort of patients with acute myeloid leukaemia receiving early palliative supportive care. METHODS: This is an observational, retrospective study based on 215 patients consecutively enrolled at a haematology early palliative supportive care clinic in Modena, Italy. Comprehensive hospital chart reviews were performed to abstract the presence of well-established quality indicators for palliative care and for aggressiveness of care near the end of life. RESULTS: 131 patients received a full early palliative supportive care intervention. All patients had at least one and 67 (51%) patients had four or more quality indicators for palliative care. Only 2.7% of them received chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life. None underwent intubation or cardiopulmonary resuscitation and was admitted to intensive care unit during the last month of life. Only 4% had either multiple hospitalisations or two or more emergency department access. Approximately half of them died at home or in a hospice. More than 40% did not receive transfusions within 7 days of death. The remaining 84 patients, considered late referrals to palliative care, demonstrated sensibly lower frequencies of the same indicators. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with acute myeloid leukaemia receiving early palliative supportive care demonstrated high frequency of quality indicators for palliative care and low rates of treatment aggressiveness at the end of life.

Changes in Cancer Patients' and Caregivers' Disease Perceptions While Receiving Early Palliative Care: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the underlying mechanisms through which early palliative care (EPC) improves multiple outcomes in patients with cancer and their caregivers. The aim of this study was to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze patients' and caregivers' thoughts and emotional and cognitive perceptions about the disease prior to and during the EPC intervention, and in the end of life, following the exposure to EPC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy-seven patients with advanced cancer and 48 caregivers from two cancer centers participated in semistructured interviews. Their reports were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed by the means of the grounded theory and a text-analysis program. RESULTS: Participants reported their past as overwhelmed by unmanaged symptoms, with detrimental physical and psychosocial consequences. The EPC intervention allowed a prompt resolution of symptoms and of their consequences and empowerment, an appreciation of its multidimensional approach, its focus on the person and its environment, and the need for EPC for oncologic populations. Patients reported that conversations with the EPC team increased their acceptance of end of life and their expectation of a painless future. Quantitative analysis revealed higher use of Negative Affects (p < .001) and Biological Processes words (p < .001) when discussing the past; Agency words when discussing the present (p < .001); Positive Affects (p < .001), Optimism (p = .002), and Insight Thinking words (p < .001) when discussing the present and the future; and Anxiety (p = .002) and Sadness words (p = .003) when discussing the future. CONCLUSION: Overall, participants perceived EPC to be beneficial. Our findings suggest that emotional and cognitive processes centered on communication underlie the benefits experienced by participants on EPC. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: By qualitative and quantitative analyses of the emotional and cognitive perceptions of cancer patients and their caregivers about their experiences before and during EPC interventions, this study may help physicians/nurses to focus on the disease perception by patients/caregivers and the benefits of EPC, as a standard practice. The analysis of words used by patients/caregivers provides a proxy for their psychological condition and support in tailoring an EPC intervention, based on individual needs. This study highlights that the relationship of the triad EPC team/patients/caregivers may rise as a therapeutic tool, allowing increasing awareness and progressive acceptance of the idea of death.