Physicians have a responsibility to recognize caregiver burden. Caregiver assessment and intervention should be tailored to the individual circumstances and contexts in which caregiver burden occurs.

The majority of studies demonstrated statistically significant effects associated with the advance directive intervention. The most successful interventions incorporated direct patient-healthcare professional interactions over multiple visits. Passive education of patients using written materials (without direct counseling) was a relatively ineffective method for increasing advance directive completion rates in the primary care setting.

Most community-dwelling adults did not mention the major components of palliative and hospice care in their definitions, implying a low level of awareness of these services, and misinformation is common among community-dwelling adults. Palliative and hospice care education initiatives are needed to both increase awareness of and reduce misperceptions about these services.

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