Care of people in their last days of life should be based on compassion, respect and, wherever possible, on research evidence. Previously the Liverpool Care Pathway attempted to facilitate this but it was withdrawn after an independent government report found that its uncritical implementation could lead to poor care. This Concise Guideline overviews NICE Clinical Guideline (NG31), which addres...

BACKGROUND According to the existential philosophers, meaning, purpose and choice are necessary for quality of life. Qualitative researchers exploring the perspectives of people who have experienced health crises have also identified the need for meaning, purpose and choice following life disruptions. Although espousing the importance of meaning in occupation, occupational therapy theory has be...

This study examined the effectiveness of short-term, home-based occupational therapy guided by the Occupational Therapy Intervention Process Model for improving activities of daily living [ADL] with eight frail, older adults living in assistive living. A multi-method research approach was utilized to collect both quantitative and descriptive, qualitative data in the form of a retrospective exam...

With an increased demand arising from stake holders to provide more complex clinical experiences and to have students better prepared for clinical rotations, educators need to develop instructional tasks and measures to teach and assess clinical reasoning. The purpose of this article is to highlight a clinical simulation measure revolving around the A SECRET reasoning approach, which is also ge...

Systematic reviews of literature relevant to early intervention and early childhood services are important to the practice of occupational therapy. We describe the five questions that served as the focus for the systematic reviews of the effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions in early intervention and early childhood services. We include the background for the reviews; the process ...

Men who are raising dependent children after their spouses or partners have died from cancer face unique challenges adjusting to single parenthood while managing their grief and the grief of their children. Unfortunately, the needs of those widowers have been overlooked in the clinical literature and no published interventions are designed specifically for that population. The current article d...

Adults with cancer may be at risk for limitations in functional status and quality of life (QOL). Occupational therapy is a supportive service with the specific mission to help people functionally engage in life as safely and independently as possible with the primary goal of improving QOL. Unfortunately, for people with cancer, occupational therapy remains underused. The overall purpose of thi...

Parkinson's disease is a chronic and increasingly complex condition, demanding multidisciplinary management. Over the last twenty years or so, alongside the growth of specialist services and healthcare teams specifically developed for people with Parkinson's, occupational therapy has grown in recognition as a treatment option, especially since evidence of its efficacy is now slowly emerging. Th...