Background: People who is close to patients suffering from incurable diseases experiences both suffering and grief. It is hard to be there for someone and at the same time handle your own grief. This can create feeling of anxiety, stress and guilt. Problem: Near related persons might not accept the further loss of someone near, the hope remains until it is final. They may not know the whole width of the situation, not acknowledge to the patient or himself how it is going to end.

Malnutrition is a common problem for patients with cancer that leads to anxiety and frustration for the whole family. Patients with palliative cancer disease treated at home are entitled to an adequate nutrition treatment suited to individual needs. Aim: The aim of the literature review was to describe how cancer patients experience their nutriment situation before and after the introduction of parental nutrition and the experience of getting home parental nutrition. Methods: A literature study was carried out where qualitative and quantitative articles were examined. Findings: Five qualitative and five quantitative articles were examined.

Background:Existential and spiritual thoughts are a big part of pallative care. The terms existential and spiritual can be understood in many different ways. It may mean thoughts about faith or thoughts concerning life and death. The nurse in Palliative care need to have good communication skills, be responsible and be present and supportive in meeting with the patient.Aim:To describe the nurse's experiences of meeting patients' existential and spiritual thoughts in Palliative care.Methods:A literature review based on 10 scientific studies have been done. The studies have been downloaded from the following scientific databases; Academic Search preimer, CINAHL Plus with   Full Text, and PubMed.

This is a study of the importance of culture for persons who are in their terminal stage of life. The purpose of my study is to find out if culture, particularly literature, can be a comfort for persons who are about to die. The study is based on interviews with people who are working in the palliative team at Norra Älvsborgs Länssjukhus (NÄL) in Trollhättan. It is also based on study of literature. It is literature about hospital library, culture in hospital treatment, Palliative care, bibliotherapy and ?own stories? from dying persons.

One third of all Swedish people will suffer in cancer. Pain is a common symptom in cancer patients. The pain is subjective and includes several dimensions. The dimensions of pain are the physical, psychological, social and spiritual. This is a literature review and the aim with this study was to identify the pain experience in patients with cancer receiving Palliative care.

Caring for the suffering, dying patients and giving support to relatives is probably one of the toughest jobs a nurse can encounter. Palliative caring is, with different measures, the prolonging of life whereas hospice caring is giving patients a meaningful and natural journey toward death. The hospice philosophy is grounded on comfort, communication and peace. The expectation is that patients will have a dignified, peaceful death. The purpose of this study was to describe the nurse's role in Palliative care.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and expand the knowledge of how bereaved spouses in Palliative care handled their grief. Attempts were also made to distinguish common patterns among the experiences that the bereaved spouses expressed.  Furthermore the study aimed to understand how the bereaved spouses handled their grief, and to understand what helped them to move on. A qualitative method was used in this essay, related to the purpose of investigating the spouses? emotional experiences. The questions used to reach an understanding of the matter were: How did the bereaved experienced their grief? Were there important contributing factors worsening their grief or making it easier? How did the bereaved persons handle their grief, and what helped them to work things through and carry on with their lives? The result was analyzed by using Antonovsky?s theory; a feeling of coherence, Lazarus? coping theory combined with Folkman?s revised coping theory.

When a family member is being cared for in Palliative care relatives often need support to be able to support their family member. The purpose of the literature review was to illuminate the nursing staff?s support from the relatives? perspective when a family member is being cared in a late palliative phase. The study is a literature review, there already existing research are surveyed. The findings were structured into two parts, tangible- and the intangible support.

AbstractBackground: Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and accounted for 7.6 million deaths, about 13% of all deaths, in 2008. Several factors can affect patients' quality of life such as physical and psychological symptoms, relationship to people around and the environment. In Palliative care professionals need to have good knowledge in order to improve patient quality of life and to give them as good a life as possible in the final stages of life.Aim: The purpose of this overview study is to describe the experiences of quality of life in patients with incurable cancer.Method: We conducted an overview study that was based on ten scientific articles. All articles are qualitative studies, from the year 1995 - 2011, and are from Sweden, Finland, UK, Canada and the USA. Qualitative analysis was used to group the various themes and subthemes for overview study purpose.

Bakgrund: I Sverige dör cirka 95 000 människor varje år och runt 80 % av dessa är i behov av palliativ vård. Palliativ vård är en vårdfilosofi som bygger på att ge stödjande och lindrande vård när botande vård inte längre är genomförbar. Vid den tidpunkt när patienten drabbats av en obotlig sjukdom sker en brytpunkt, vilket innebär att läkaren identifierar patientens aktuella tillstånd. När brytpunkten är identifierad erbjuds ett brytpunktsamtal. I samtalet planeras det för den kommande palliativa vården.

When a family member is being cared for in Palliative care relatives often need support to be able to support their family member. The purpose of the literature review was to illuminate the nursing staff?s support from the relatives? perspective when a family member is being cared in a late palliative phase. The study is a literature review, there already existing research are surveyed. The findings were structured into two parts, tangible- and the intangible support.

Sammanfattning/AbstractBakgrund:Många patienter väljer i dag att vårdas hemma under sin sista tid i livet istället för som tidigare på sjukhus eller ett boende. Den palliativa hemsjukvården blir därför alltmer utbredd vilket samtidigt innebär att allt större krav ställs på de närstående som då ofta intar en vårdande roll. Syfte:Syftet är att beskriva hur närstående upplever sin vårdande roll i den palliativa hemsjukvården.Metod:En litteraturstudie baserad på tio resultatartiklar som består av både kvalitativa och kvantitativa studier där vi kom fram till tre teman som handlade om den närståendes upplevelser av den vårdande rollen, närståendes vårdande roll och den sjuke och närståendes vårdande  roll och sjuksköterskan. Resultat:Många närstående fann både fördelar och nackdelar med den vårdande rollen och att den innebär en stor omställning. Många närstående kände sig mer eller mindre tvingade att ta över den vårdande rollen.Tillräcklig information och en god kommunikation ansågs av de närstående som en mycket viktig faktor. Diskussion:Att vårda en svårt sjuk anhörig är ofta en belastning. Detta kräver att vårdpersonalen är medvetna om de närståendes svåra situation och upplevelsen av denna. Det är även viktigt att uppmärksamma närståendes behov av information och att ha en bra kommunikation för att vi som sjuksköterskor ska kunna stödja de närstående i deras vårdande roll.Nyckelord:Anhörig vårdare, vårdande roll, palliativ vård, döende patienter, vård i livets slutKeywords:Family caregivers, caring role, Palliative care, terminally ill, end of life care .

Syfte: Syftet med studien var att beskriva föräldrars upplevelse kring när deras barn befinner sig i det terminala skedet av svår sjukdom eller trauma, och av den palliativa vård de erhåller. Ett ytterligare syfte var att kvalitetsgranska artiklarna utifrån datainsamlingsmetod. Metod: Den föreliggande litteraturstudien har en beskrivande design. Sökningar gjordes i databaserna PubMed och Cinahl med sökorden child, parent, experience, Palliative care och death. Tretton artiklar valdes ut och bearbetades. Huvudresultat: Det framkom att föräldrar upplevde att vägen mot att förlora ett barn var en kaosartad och känsloladdad tid.

Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva vad patienter med cancer i den palliativa fasen upplever att livskvalitet är utifrån fysiskt, psykiskt och socialt perspektiv. Sökning av de underlag som användes i studien gjordes i olika databaser som Medline (via pubmed), Science Direct och Academic Search Elite. Sökningarna gjordes med enkla sökord eller i kombination med varandra. De underlag som söktes begränsades med att vara skrivna på svenska eller engelska, vara publicerade mellan år 2000-2008, handla om vuxna patienter samt fri åtkomst via databasen i fulltext. Totalt 17 artiklar granskades, analyserades och sammanställdes sedan under de olika perspektiven: fysiskt, psykiskt och socialt.

Palliative care concerns care of those who are dying and when cure is no longer an option. The nurse´s job is then to support the patient and to give care of good qualitive so that the patient will experience optimal quality of life. The aim of this literature review was to describe how the nurse can prepare herself/himself for the meeting with both the patient and close ones also to describe a nurse´s need of support and education. Nine studies have been used as a foundation for this literature review. Four headlines have been crystallized out of the result, a) the view of death b) the impact of the meeting c) the importance of support d) the importance of preparation and education.