Professor David Oliver, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Professor Marianne de Visser, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Co-Chairs of Palliative Care Scientific Panel
The Palliative Care Scientific Panel aims to encourage the development of palliative care for people with neurological disease. There are increasing links with the European Association for Palliative Care and the President of the EAPC, Professor Phil Larkin, is attending the EAN Congress in Copenhagen and meeting with the EAN President, Professor Deuschl, to look at the collaboration between the two organizations. This may include the completion of a Memorandum of Understanding and a joint group looking at palliative care and neurological disease.
The Panel has been instrumental in producing a Consensus Review of palliative care and this has been published on-line in the EJN and will be published this year:
Oliver DJ, Borasio GD, Caraceni A, de Visser M, Grisold W, Lorenzl S, Veronese S, Voltz R. A consensus review on the development of palliative care for patients with chronic and progressive neurological disease. Eur J Neurol 2016; doi:10.1111/ene.12889.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26423203
The Panel will continue to look at the education of neurologists, both in training and in substantive posts, and palliative care specialists in the mutual area of palliative care and a joint curriculum has been drafted and will continue to be developed.
The key messages are:
· Palliative care is appropriate for the care of people with chronic and progressive neurological disease
· There is a need for mutual understanding and collaboration between neurology and palliative care services
· Education in palliative care should be available for all in neurology and palliative care specialists require an increasing knowledge of neurology
· The joint collaboration will continue over the coming two years.