Oral Ketamine for Depression and Anxiety in Hospice
November 21, 2013
by: Alex Smith, @alexsmithMD Journal of Palliative Medicine recently published a nice exploratory open label study of daily oral ketamine…
Should My Patient Get an Amyloid PET Scan for the Diagnosis of Alzheimers?
November 19, 2013
In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved florbetapir F-18 (Amyvid) PET scans to identify areas of accumulation of…
Literature Potpourri
October 26, 2013
by: Alex Smith, @AlexSmithMD Ronald Reagan died in 2004 of advanced dementia Some great paper GeriPal readers should be award…
Doing the Right Thing and Making It Pay
October 19, 2013
Advanced care and palliative care can reduce healthcare costs for people with serious chronic illness. It’s hard to dispute that…
Do Not Hospitalize orders for nursing home residents with advanced dementia
October 8, 2013
by: Alex Smith @alexsmithMD Advanced dementia is a terminal illness needing palliative care. Unfortunately, there is a great divide between this…
ePrognosis: What are the Next Steps
October 3, 2013
by: Alex Smith @alexsmithmd We need your help. We’ve come a long way with ePrognosis, our online and now mobile…
Adding Prognosis to Cancer Screening Decisions: The ePrognosis Cancer Screening App
October 2, 2013
The goal of cancer screening is to identify asymptomatic cancer well before it causes symptoms or death. This means that…
Dumb Policy: 3-Night Hospital Requirement for Medicare SNF
September 16, 2013
by: Alex Smith @AlexSmithMD The patient was elderly and was hospitalized for a COPD exacerbation. Fortunately, her breathing problems were…
A Fascinating Case Over Who Has the Right Over The Remains of a Loved One
September 14, 2013
On June 12, Betty Jean Collins of Warsaw, Missouri, executed a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Choices (DPOA-HC)…