IAHPC BOOK REVIEW

PALLIATIVE CARE FOR NON-CANCER PATIENTS

Julia Addington-Hall and Irene Higginson (Editors)

Oxford University Press 2001 ISBN 0-19-262960-3 292pp RRP $US62.00 £39.95

This book sets out to specifically describe the palliative care needs of patients who die from diseases other than cancer, and to discuss how these needs might best be met.

The first set of chapters provides an up-to-date summary of the palliation of symptoms in each group of nonmalignant diseases, although the evidence base is sometimes quite thin. Questions about which patients would benefit from palliative care, and when, are also addressed. For patients with nonmalignant diseases, generalizations are usually not possible and decisions have to be individualized.

The next few chapters discuss the problems regarding palliative care for patients with nonmalignant disease in various settings including primary care, nursing homes and hospitals. The discussions of how we might overcome the barriers and provide palliative care for all who deserve it in these situations, is quite thought provoking.

This book would be a worthwhile addition to the library shelf of any hospice or palliative care service that manages any patients with nonmalignant disease. Besides a useful summary of symptom palliation, it provides some background and perspective on the nonmalignant conditions that will be of benefit to those us who spend most of our time managing patients with advanced cancer.

Roger Woodruff
Director of Palliative Care, Austin & Repatriation Medical Centre, Melbourne
October 2002