palliative care Archives

Reducing treatment costs for thyroid cancer patients in Japan

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Japan’s healthcare system disincentivises longer hospital stays to reduce costs, but also categorises certain complications as secondary diseases, which incur separate additional payments. The high rate of occurrence of these complications makes these costs unavoidable. Hiroki Konno, Associate Professor at the College of Sports Sciences at Nihon University, Japan, studied the implications of this for four prognostic factors affecting thyroid […]

Who makes the decisions? Patient “compliance” in modern medicine

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Traditionally, the term “patient compliance” was used to define how closely a patient followed their doctor’s advice. Now, with the ever-expanding information and resources available to patients, the idea of “compliance” is in need of an update. Professor Karen Lutfey Spencer, of the University of Colorado Denver, USA, looked at the experiences of patients receiving end-of-life care to gain an […]