The first study guide for the CHPN (R) certification exam! This must-have study guide for nurses seeking to obtain Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN (R)) status provides state-of-the-art information about all aspects of this specialty. It features 300 carefully selected Q&As that offer a detailed rationale for each question, along with tips and strategies to promote exam mastery and frequently asked questions about the exam. Additional questions are arranged in chapters mirroring the exam blueprint and the number of questions for each category correlates with the exam matrix. Case-based scenarios embodied within the questions facilitate the application of knowledge in a problem-solving format. A complete practice exam is included as well. Brief topical reviews address hospice and palliative care nursing practice in all of its dimensions, including physical, spiritual, and psychosocial. The resource highlights information that forms the basis of end-of-life care, such as communication and family-centered care. Additionally, high-level skills used by hospice and palliative care nurses, such as drug and dosage conversion and the use of infusion therapy, are covered as well. Key Features: Delivers the first study guide for hospice and palliative nurses seeking CHPN (R) certification Provides concise, up-to-date knowledge on all aspects of the specialty Includes information about the exam, answers to commonly asked questions, and tips and strategies for exam mastery Includes practice questions and answers following each chapter Provides a final comprehensive practice exam that offers 300 Q&As with detailed answer rationales that mirror the exam format Presents case-based scenarios within the questions that facilitate the application of knowledge

By bridging the gap between conventional medical interventions and complementary approaches using aromatherapy, palliative care nurse and clinical aromatherapist, Carol Rose, demonstrates how an integrated and evidence-based approach can have the most significant impact on quality-of-life in patients with life-limiting illness. Aromatherapy is already a fundamental practice in many palliative care settings but its benefits remain under-researched and under-represented. Each chapter of this book incorporates a person-centred focus to consider the integration of various aromatherapy approaches for a range of end-of-life symptoms, alongside conventional medical options. The specificity of this approach and the emphasis of empowering patients to be involved in the process of choosing oils and applications, allows for improved results in the palliation of common symptoms. Integrating Clinical Aromatherapy in Palliative Care has a foundation in research from the patient's point of view. The result is a fresh perspective that prioritises support of patient choices, skilful communication and individualised care, alongside the judicious use of essential oils and other botanical products. Collectively, aromatherapy can completely reframe holistic care to allow for greater emotional, social and spiritual expression.

50 Studies Every Palliative Care Doctor Should Know presents key studies that have shaped the practice of palliative medicine. Selected using a rigorous methodology, the studies cover topics including: palliative care, symptom assessment and management, psychosocial aspects of care and communication, and end-of-life care. For each study, a concise summary is presented with an emphasis on the results and limitations of the study, and its implications for practice. An illustrative clinical case concludes each review, followed by brief information on other relevant studies. This book is a must-read for health care professionals and anyone who wants to learn more about the data behind clinical practice.

Now in paperback, the Oxford Textbook of Communication in Oncology and Palliative Care integrates clinical wisdom with empirical findings. Written by an international team of authors, it draws upon the history of communication science, providing the reader with a comprehensive curriculum for applied communication skills training. An essential resource, the Oxford Textbook of Communication in Oncology and Palliative Care is filled with tips and strategies for effective communication in difficult and challenging scenarios. In focusing on cancer and the end-of-life, it deals with the existential and spiritual challenges found across all of medicine, providing deep insights into what is at stake and how clinicians might optimally respond. This authoritative and wide-ranging book provides clinicians with state-of-the-art and evidence-based guidelines to achieve effective, patient-centred communication in the clinical settings of oncology and palliative care. This edition includes sections on the curriculum for nurses, the core curriculum, and an introductory section on communication science. The chapters embrace specialty issues across the clinical disciplines, from enrolling in clinical trials, working in teams, and discussing genetic risk, to talking about sexuality, infertility, and intercultural issues. An educational perspective is also provided, with chapters covering communication skills training, how to evaluate courses, and international models of training.

Structured around a personal account of the illness and death of the author's partner, Jane, this book explores how something hard to bear became a threshold to a world of insight and discovery. Drawing on German Idealism and Jane's own research in the area, The Aesthetic Experience of Dying looks at the notion of life as a binary synthesis, or a return enhanced, as a way of coming to understand death. Binary synthesis describes the interplay between dynamically opposing pairs of concepts - such as life and death - resulting in an enhanced version of one of them to move forward in a new cycle of the process. Yet what relevance does this elegant word game have to the shocking diagnosis of serious illness? Struggling to balance reason with sense, thought with feeling, this book examines the experience of caring for someone from diagnosis to death and is illustrated with examples of the return enhanced. The concluding chapter outlines how the tension of Jane's dying has been resolved as the rhythmic patterns of the lifeworld have been understood through the process of reflecting on the experience. This creative and insightful book will appeal to those interested in the medical humanities. It will also be an important reference for practising and student health professionals.

In recent years, palliative care has emerged as the leading model of person-centered care focused on preserving quality of life and alleviating distress for people and families experiencing serious and life-limiting medical illness. Alongside this development has come a growing recognition of the need for expertise in psychiatric diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and psychotherapy within the interdisciplinary team of specialists tasked with identifying and addressing the varied sources of suffering in patients with advanced medical illnesses. The Clinical Manual of Palliative Care Psychiatry was written to motivate and guide readers-whether mental health clinicians or palliative care providers-to deepen their understanding of the psychosocial dimensions of suffering for the benefit of seriously ill patients and the support of their families. Great care has been exercised in the choice of topics and features: * Chapter content emphasizes practical aspects of assessment and management that are unique to the palliative care setting, ensuring that clinicians are equipped to address the most common challenges they are likely to face.* Each chapter ends with a list of supplemental materials-including key publications (e.g., "Fast Facts" from the Center to Advance Palliative Care) and links to relevant modules from the Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care curriculum (e.g., EPEC for Oncology)-aimed at extending and enhancing reader knowledge of the topics covered.* The authors provide thorough coverage of medication use, including off-label applications, which are common in palliative care.* A wealth of tables and figures present clinically relevant information in a concise and easy-to-grasp manner. Practical and brimming with essential information and useful techniques, the Clinical Manual of Palliative Care Psychiatry empowers both mental health clinicians and palliative care practitioners to more skillfully respond to psychosocial suffering in seriously ill and dying patients.

Pediatric palliative care is a field of significant growth as health care systems recognize the benefits of palliative care in areas such as neonatal intensive care, pediatric ICU, and chronic pediatric illnesses. Pediatric Palliative Care, the fourth volume in the HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals series, highlights key issues related to the field. Chapters address pediatric hospice, symptom management, pediatric pain, the neonatal intensive care unit, transitioning goals of care between the emergency department and intensive care unit, and grief and bereavement in pediatric palliative care. The content of the concise, clinically-focused volumes in the HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals series prepares nurses for certification exams as well as quick-reference in daily practice. Plentiful tables and patient teaching points make these volumes useful resources for nurses.

Loss and Grief: Personal Stories of Doctors and Other Healthcare Professionals is a unique collection of personal narratives that chronicle the journeys of doctors and other healthcare professionals who have been personally impacted by life-altering losses. Edited by internationally recognized practitioners of supportive care medicine and grief counseling, these are unflinching, first-person narratives of authors walking in their own shoes. The narratives reveal losses of cherished loved ones, integrity, dreams, naive views of colleagues, and the lack of institutional support for these inevitable experiences. Although the narrators are well-established leaders in their fields, serious loss brought each back to the exposed core of their most basic selves. They learned that the professional veneer was too thin to be instructive or protective. Readers might resonate with their own painful experiences and memories, and others might wonder how they will imagine their own future when these inevitable aspects of being human-loss and grief-strike them, too. In Loss and Grief, it is our hope that such openly shared feelings of isolation and suffering will humanize the loss experience, ignite prospective discussions, and illuminate opportunities for education, research and interventions to prepare us for multiple loss experiences endemic to life.

The care of patients with advanced and terminal illness can be extremely rewarding but often causes professionals a considerable amount of discomfort. This is especially so when you feel under confident in your abilities to provide a high quality of symptom management and relief from distress and to communicate appropriately with patients. Patients with advanced disease present some of the most challenging ethical, physical, psychological and social issues to clinicians and indeed to society. Patients need us to be knowledgeable, skilful and understanding. The fully revised and updated new edition of Palliative Care outlines the fundamental principles and facts which will enable you to make a very real difference to your patients and their families. Information is provided in an accessible, user-friendly way and covers a wide range of physical and non-physical symptom management. Multi-professional team work is addressed, as is the role and support of families. There is also a consideration of the dilemmas and decisions that may be encountered by doctors around the end of a patient's life. This practical resource, designed to provoke contemplative professional development, and enhance learning will be essential reading for nursing and medical practitioners, and other professionals who support patients in their homes, in care homes, and in hospital.

The importance of spiritual well-being and the role of "meaning" in moderating depression, hopelessness and desire for death in terminally-ill cancer and AIDS patients has been well-supported by research, and has led many palliative clinicians to look beyond the role of antidepressant treatment in this population. Clinicians are focusing on the development of non-pharmacologic interventions that can address issues such as hopelessness, loss of meaning, and spiritual well-being in patients with advanced cancer at the end of life. This effort led to an exploration and analysis of the work of Viktor Frankl and his concepts of logotherapy, or meaning-based psychotherapy. While Frankl's logotherapy was not designed for the treatment of patients with life-threatening illnesses, his concepts of meaning and spirituality have inspired applications in psychotherapeutic work with advanced cancer patients, many of whom seek guidance and help in dealing with issues of sustaining meaning, hope, and understanding cancer and impending death in the context of their lives. Individual Meaning-Centered Group Psychotherapy (IMCP), an intervention developed and rigorously tested by the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, is a seven-week program that utilizes a mixture of didactics, discussion and experiential exercises that focus around particular themes related to meaning and advanced cancer. Patients are assigned readings and homework that are specific to each session's theme and which are utilized in each session. While the focus of each session is on issues of meaning and purpose in life in the face of advanced cancer and a limited prognosis, elements of support and expression of emotion are inevitable in the context of each group session. The structured intervention presented in this manual can be provided by a wide array of clinical disciplines, ranging from chaplains, nurses, palliative care physicians, to counselors, psychotherapists, social workers, graduate psychology students, psychologists and psychiatrists.

The study and practice of end-of-life care has seen an increasing understanding of the need for care that integrates clinical, psychosocial, spiritual, cultural, and ethical expertise. Yet, no one existing volume pulls together perspectives from a diverse array of religions with ethical dilemmas and clinical problems in view. Safe Passage coaches clinicians and others on the front lines of care on understanding how to incorporate different traditions of thinking into the most difficult of moments around the end of life. The book is structured around five major moments of realization - when disease progresses, when emergencies happen, when dying will be a long process, the time of death, and when grieving begins. Each decision point is introduced with a research summary and an extensive case example that describes disease processes, health care delivery possibilities, and the end-of-life dilemmas involved so as to apply across the varying cultural, socio-economic, and spiritual contexts. The case example is followed by a clinical commentary written by a palliative care specialist, an ethical commentary written by an ethicist, and three short essays written by religious thinkers of different traditions. Each situation is concluded by remarks on potential approaches that respect religious and spiritual beliefs, values, and practices at the end of life across all contexts, and a bibliography. The five decision points are bookended by an introductory section that explores broad historical and cultural perspectives and a conclusion section that summarizes the book and provides guidance for further reading and study.

Acute and chronic pain places a huge burden on our society. Approximately 10% of the population in Western countries report suffering from chronic pain, and both chronic and acute pain are responsible for high absenteeism in the workplace. It is therefore crucial that we have effective ways of treating pain. Unfortunately though, we have no objective measures of pain - no blood tests, no urine dipsticks. We have to rely on what the patient tells us. So how then do we know what are and what are not effective pain treatments? It is here that the principles of evidence-based medicine have been of great value - helping us to understand the most effective forms of pain treatment. Bandolier's Little Book of Pain is a unique portable guide to evidence-based pain treatments. For each possible treatment, the book provides the evidence supporting the efficacy of the treatment, along with a clinical bottom line, for those requiring immediate information. Written by world leaders in the field of evidence-based pain treatments, the book will be indispensable for the multi-disciplinary professionals managing acute and chronic pain in primary and secondary care.

Oxford Case Histories in Oncology contains 30 well-structured cases from clinical practice, giving a comprehensive coverage of the diagnostic and management dilemmas in oncology. The cases cover a wide spectrum of oncology including rare presentations and clinical problems of common cancers. Each case comprises a brief clinical history with relevant clinical examination findings. Questions are based on clinical investigations and aspects of management. Detailed answers are based on the best available evidence from the latest research, systematic reviews, meta-analysis and guidelines from national and international academic bodies. The text is complimented by over 50 illustrations, including radiographic images and radiotherapy treatment plans. The format of this book is thought provoking, and it helps to improve critical thinking and interpretative skills. It is a perfect self-assessment tool for oncology and palliative medicine trainees and consultants, and will be useful for those preparing for exit examinations in oncology. It will also be of interest to non-specialist readers who wish to improve their skills in the diagnosis and management of a broad range of cancers.

Maintaining dignity for patients approaching death is a core principle of palliative care. Translating that principle into methods of guiding care at the end of life, however, can be a complicated and daunting task. Dignity therapy, a psychological intervention developed by Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov and his internationally lauded research group, has been designed specifically to address many of the psychological, existential, and spiritual challenges that patients and their families face as they grapple with the reality of life drawing to a close. Tested with patients with advanced illnesses in Canada, the United States, Australia, China, Scotland, England, and Denmark, dignity therapy has been shown to not only benefit patients, but their families as well. In the first book to lay out the blueprint for this unique and meaningful intervention, Chochinov addresses one of the most important dimensions of being human. Being alive means being vulnerable and mortal; he argues that dignity therapy offers a way to preserve meaning and hope for patients approaching death. Dignity Therapy: Final Words for Final Days is a beautiful introduction to this pioneering and innovative work. With history and foundations of dignity in care, and step by step guidance for readers interested in implementing the program, this volume illuminates how dignity therapy can change end-of-life experience for those about to die - and for those who will grieve their passing.

How do people face life-limiting illness and death? This challenging question is discussed in-depth in Life to be Lived by looking at the feelings, hopes, fears and stresses associated with life-threatening illnesses, often experienced by patients and their carers. Drawn from research, clinical, and pastoral experiences, the authors examine the process of adjustment that patients and their families go through in major illnesses and when approaching the end of life. Life to be Lived is written in an accessible style using many stories shared by counsellors, chaplains, patients and relatives. Describing the messiness, uncertainties, and paradoxes that are part and parcel of living through an advanced illness, dying, and bereavement, but also what helps and heals, it reviews a range of responses to the challenges to patients and carers and the support, both personal and organisational. Life to be Lived is essential reading for professionals and trained volunteers who work as a part of multidisciplinary teams in palliative and end-of-life care to improve their understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of patients and carers. Families and friends will also benefit from this book as they try to come to terms with their own situations and how they can cope better with them.

Worldwide, more than 50 million people die each year and it is estimated on the basis of the conditions leading to death that up to 60% of them could benefit from some form of palliative care. It is a public health challenge to ensure that these people can access good palliative or end-of-life care. Pursuing good population health essentially also implies striving for a 'good enough death' and a good quality of care at the end of life. Safeguarding a good quality of the end of life for patient populations for whom it is appropriate requires a public health approach. In most developed countries ageing populations that increasingly die from chronic diseases after a prolonged -often degenerative- dying trajectory make up the public health challenges for palliative care. The very large baby boom generation will soon reach old age and can be expected to pose strong demands regarding the circumstances and care at their end of life. Only by applying a public health approach to palliative care (instead of individual patient perspectives), can societies successfully help to organize and plan end-of-life care in accordance with these aspirations. A Public Health Perspective on End of Life Care presents a synthesis and overview of relevant research and empirical data on the end of life that can bear a basis for a more systematic 'public health of the end of life'. The book focuses on population health, rather than clinical interventions or other aspects of individual health, and discusses studies using different methodologies (not only epidemiological research). The focus is on the quality of the end-of-life of populations, in particular from social sciences, environmental sciences, and humanities perspectives.

The effective management of pain from cancer is a top priority for patients, carers and healthcare professionals, and has been the subject of extensive research. Approximately two-thirds of cancer patients will experience severe pain, and many of them will have more than one pain. However, because of the increasing number of available treatments for cancer, patients are surviving for longer periods, and are developing complex consequences of their cancer and its treatment, such as central and peripheral neuropathic pain syndromes. Approximately 8 - 10% of cancer pain remains unrelieved by conventional means.
Interventional cancer pain management implies the use of invasive techniques, such as neuraxial (epidural, intrathecal and intracerebroventricular) drug administration, brachial and lumbar plexus blocks, autonomic blockade, neurolytic blocks and cordotomy. It can also include TENS, acupuncture and complementary therapies. This book describes specifically the difficult pain problems that are now faced in palliative care and highlights the need for greater collaboration between the disciplines of pain medicine and palliative care. It refers to the psychological and spiritual needs of patients, and provides patient experience data on specialist techniques. The book is an invaluable resource for all healthcare professionals working in palliative care, pain management, and primary care to inform them about the range of interventional techniques available, with evidence of efficacy, side effects and management advice.

Society has become increasingly diverse; multi-cultural, multi-faith and wide ranging in family structures. The wealthier are healthier and social inequalities are more pronounced. Respecting and working with the range of 'differences' among service users, families and communities in health and social care with ill, dying and bereaved people is a neglected area in the literature. As the principles of palliative and end of life care increasingly permeate the mainstream of health and social care services, it is important that professionals are sensitive and respond to the differing needs of individuals from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, beliefs, abilities and sexual orientations, as well as to the different contexts and social environments in which people live and die. This book explores what underpins inequality, disadvantage and injustice in access to good end of life care. Increasingly clinicians, policy planners, and academics are concerned about inequity in service provision. Internationally, there is an increasing focus and sense of urgency both on delivering good care in all settings regardless of diagnosis, and on better meeting the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. National initiatives emphasise the importance of resolving disparities in care and harnessing empowered user voices to drive change. This newly expanded, fully revised second edition, with 11 new chapters, provides a comprehensive analysis of discrimination, difference and disadvantage in end of life care, and offers practical guidance for all who seek to support the equitable provision of good end of life care.

The case of Terri Schiavo, a young woman who spent 15 years in a persistent vegetative state, has emerged as a watershed in debates over end-of-life care. While many observers had thought the right to refuse medical treatment was well established, this case split a family, divided a nation, and counfounded physicians, legislators, and many of the people they treated or represented. In renewing debates over the importance of advance directives, the appropriate role of artificial hydration and nutrition, and the responsibilities of family members, the case also became one of history's most extensively litigated health care disputes. The Case of Terri Schiavo assembles a team of first-hand participants and content experts to provide thoughtful and nuanced analyses. In addition to a comprehensive overview, the book includes contributions by Ms. Schiavo's guardian ad litem, a neurologist and lawyer who participated in the case, and scholars who examine issues related to litigation, faith, gender, and disability. The volume also includes a powerful dissent from the views of many scholars in the bioethics community. The book is intended for students, health care professionals, policy makers, and other in search of carefully reasoned analyses of the case that will shape our view of death and end-of-life medical care for decades.

The Oxford Specialist Handbooks series provides readers with clear, concise information on all that is needed to successfully train in the medical sub-specialties. Each book gives an overview of clearly defined procedures, skills, guidelines, and technologies and provides practical tips and case studies to supplement hands-on experience. Where appropriate, each book complements the revised curriculum as developed by the Specialist Advisory Committees.
Dementia is a growing issue, exacerbated by improvements in health care which have led to an ageing population; currently three quarters of a million people suffer from dementia in the UK, and this is expected to rise to 1.8 million by 2050. This book concentrates on advanced disease and addresses issues such as pain management, decision-making, spiritual needs, communication, the Mental Health Capacity Act, dementia in the younger patient, and the carer's perspective.
Written by specialists, this book will be invaluable for doctors and nurses involved in palliative medicine, geriatrics, and old-age psychiatry, and the generalist who treats the patient with dementia.

Ageing populations mean that palliative and end of life care for older people must assume greater priority. Indeed, there is an urgent need to improve the experiences of older people at the end of life, given that they have been identified as the 'disadvantaged dying'. To date, models of care are underpinned by the ideals of specialist palliative care which were developed to meet the needs of predominantly middle-aged and 'young old' people, and evidence suggests these may not be adequate for the older population group.
This book identifies ways forward for improving the end of life experiences of older people by taking an interdisciplinary and international approach. Providing a synergy between the currently disparate literature of gerontology and palliative care, a wide range of leading international experts contribute to discussions regarding priority areas in relation to ageing and end of life care. Some authors take a theoretical focus, others a very practical approach rooted in their clinical and research experience. The issues covered are diverse, as are the countries in which discussions are contextualised. Those working in both palliative care and gerontology will find the issues and advice discussed in this book hugely topical and of real practical value.

The need for renewal and support for those who care for seriously ill, dying, and bereaved people has been acknowledged from the very beginning of the hospice and palliative care movement. While often referring to the rewards and satisfactions of the work, Dame Cicely Saunders was the -first to acknowledge that helping encounters with dying patients and distressed relatives could be a source of anguish and grief for dedicated and compassionate carers. Caregiver Stress and Staff Support in Illness, Dying, and Bereavement discusses the challenge of finding a balance between the support needs of patients, families, and staff and the resources available. With contributions from practitioners and researchers from around the world, this book recognizes that palliative care today is being provided in many different settings and that there may be wide variations in the way individuals and organizations identify and manage the stressors that arise through the work. This unique collection of international perspectives on the complexities and management of caregiver stress and staff support builds on the firm foundation Mary Vachon built over thirty years ago in her studies, yet broadens the scope to include significant social, political, and cultural variations on the theme.

Respiratory disease is the second most common cause of death worldwide. Patients with advanced non-malignant disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, have similar or even greater health care needs than those with advanced lung cancer. Uncontrolled symptoms, distress, and social isolation contribute to the poor quality of life experienced by such patients.
This book provides practical guidance to professionals who care for patients with advanced respiratory disease. It gives evidence-based advice on a wide range of topics, including management of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms, chronic respiratory failure, and respiratory emergencies. Recognition of when a patient may be approaching the end of life can be particularly challenging in patients with advanced respiratory disease. Ways to facilitate prognostication are covered, along with the significant communication and ethical challenges that this phase of life can present.
Written by a respiratory specialist and two palliative medicine physicians, this book will be of great value to doctors, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals working in respiratory medicine and in palliative care, both in relation to everyday clinical practice as well as meeting the requirements for postgraduate exams.

Recent years have seen increasing interest in the needs of children facing bereavement, and a corresponding increase in services to support them. This book addresses and explains the theoretical concepts and practical implications behind the idea of brief work with bereaved children and families. Flexible and accessible short term services delivered at the right time underpin the strengths of bereaved children, supporting their recovery rather than pathologizing the grief process. In this way, the book also speaks to the current interest in the concept of resilience and working with families' strengths and possibilities, rather than merely identifying their problems.
This second edition continues to be a unique book within the growing field of childhood bereavement, and the new chapters added to this edition discuss managing situations with learning disabilities, supporting very young children and emotional literacy. The book also presents cases from the service user's perspective. It looks at different approaches to intervention, such as the importance of assessment and the value of groupwork, and also covers work with children and families before a death.
Brief Interventions with Bereaved Children will appeal to practitioners, educators, and service providers managing scarce resources. The editors have more than twenty-five years experience as practitioners within the field, as service providers and educators. The book features chapters from distinguished contributors with backgrounds in healthcare, educations, social work, and the police, alongside theoretical and practice-based chapters from workers in the field of bereavement care for children.

Since the turn of the century, there has been worldwide growth in the effort to improve the quality of end of life care. Alongside these initiatives, growing interest in the international development of hospice and palliative care has created the need for an informed, in depth overview of the state of development in different world regions.
A follow-up to the successful Hospice and Palliative Care in Africa: a review of developments and challenges (Wright and Clark, OUP 2006), this book provides a detailed evidence-base of the palliative care provision in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, identifies barriers to development and how these may be overcome. The book aims to stimulate a more informed debate around these issues, to improve policy-making among intergovernmental and governmental organisations on end of life care in these regions, and to encourage further research and improved practice.
Hospice and Palliative Care in Southeast Asia: a review of developments and challenges in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines includes in-depth country reports that analyse the current state of hospice and palliative care. The book is written using a template that allows effective comparison between countries and regions. Data has been gathered from multiple sources, field visits, and interviews with key activists made possible by close working relations with hospice-palliative care colleagues across the region and in particular through links with the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN) and the national associations of each country. This book will be of relevance to anyone interested in international palliative care, including practitioners, researchers, policy-makers, social scientist, and medical historians.