A recent study by Tanuseputro and colleagues (2024) examined the prescribing rates of subcutaneous medications for end-of-life symptom control among residents who died in long-term care homes in Ontario. The findings demonstrated that about two-thirds of the residents received medications in order to manage their pain or other symptoms in their last two weeks of life and these medications were mostly opioids. The rate of medications being prescribed varied greatly between the long-term care homes, with the highest prescription rates reaching 83% of patients while the lowest reached 37% of patients. There was also a difference found between the number of patients who were sent home in their last two weeks of life. This suggests that some additional research could be beneficial in order to understand these differences between the homes. Read more…
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