BACKGROUND: Previous work suggests that parents of children with cancer can remain hopeful despite receiving prognostic information, but we know little about what hope means to such parents, or the extent to which parents can feel hopeful even while facing the child's impending death.
METHODS:We audiotaped conversations between clinicians and parents of 32 children with relapsed or refractory cancer, and then interviewed parents about their hopes and expectations for their child.RESULTS: Parent statements about prognosis in interviews mirrored those made by clinicians during discussions about the child's diagnosis with refractory or relapsed cancer. Clinicians used language referring to hope during these conversations but did not ask parents directly about their hopes. Parents expressed a range of hopes for their children, from hopes related to cure or treatment response, to quality of life, normalcy, and love and relationships for the child. For most parents, expectations about prognosis were not aligned with their hopes for the child; for example, many parents hoped for a cure and also reported that they did not believe cure was possible. Many parents were able to acknowledge this incongruence.CONCLUSIONS: Parents accurately conveyed the reality of their child's serious condition in the setting of advanced cancer, and yet maintained hope. Hopes were not limited to hope for cure/ treatment response. Clinicians should be encouraged to engage in direct conversations about hope with parents as a means to elicit realistic hopes that can help to focus the most meaningful plans for the child and family.
WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT:Although physicians worry that communicating about prognosis or life-threatening illness can take away hope, previous work suggests that prognosis communication may even enhance hope. The nature of hopes held by parents of children with advanced cancer was not previously understood.WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: Parents in our study frequently recognized their child' s poor prognosis, yet held many different hopes, including for cure, quality of life, and meaningful relationships. Parents who hoped for cure often recognized that this was not possible for their child.
Many parents consider prognosis communication to be both difficult and necessary. While upsetting, prognostic information engenders hope by helping parents feel prepared to do their best for their children in the difficult days to come.
Alcohol ads reach the equivalent of every adult in the Greater Boston region and the equivalent of every 5th- to 12th-grade public school student each day. More alcohol ads were displayed in stations in neighborhoods with high poverty rates than in stations in neighborhoods with low poverty rates.
Background/Study Context
While the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) is a popular tool used to assess cognitive function, limited normative data on CDT performance exists. The objective of the current study was to provide normative data on an expanded version of previous CDT scoring protocols from a large community-based sample of middle to older adults (aged 43 to 91) from the Framingham Heart Study.
Methods
The CDT was administered to 1476 Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort participants using a scoring protocol that assigned error scores to drawn features. Total error scores were computed, as well as for subscales pertaining to outline, numeral placement, time-setting, center, and “other.”
Results
Higher levels of education were significantly associated with fewer errors for time-setting (Command: p<.001; Copy: p=.003), numerals (Command: p<.001) and “other” (Command: p<.001) subscales. Older age was significantly associated with more errors for time-setting (Command: p<.001; Copy: p=.003), numeral (Command: p<.001) and “other” (Command: p<.001) subscales. Significant differences were also found between education groups on the Command condition for all but the oldest age group (75+).
Conclusion
Results provide normative data on CDT performance within a community-based cohort. Errors appear to be more prevalent in older compared with younger individuals, and may be less prevalent in individuals who completed at least some college compared with those who did not. Future studies are needed to determine whether this expanded scoring system allows detection of preclinical symptoms of future risk for dementia.
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