Ten-year Trends of Palliative Care Utilization Associated with Multiple Sclerosis Patients in the United States from 2005 to 2014

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-24-2018

Publication Title

Journal of Clinical Neuroscience

Volume

58

First page number:

13

Last page number:

19

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neuro-inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, associated with accumulation of irreversible neurological disabilities through both inflammatory relapses and progressive neurodegeneration. Patients with debilitating MS could benefit from palliative care perspectives both during relapses that lead to transient disability as well as later in the disease course when significant physical and cognitive disability have accrued. However, no data about palliative care utilization trends of MS patients are available. We examined 10-year temporal trends of palliative care and assessed independent associations of palliative care with hospital utilization and cost using the 2005–2014 national inpatient sample. The national trends of palliative care utilization in MS patients increased by 120 times from 0.2% to 6.1% during 2005–2014, particularly with the dramatic single-year increase between 2010 (1.5%) and 2011 (4.5%). Moreover, the proportion of receiving palliative care in in-hospital death gradually increased from 7.7% in 2005 to 58.8% in 2014. Palliative care in MS inpatients may affect hospital utilization and charges in different ways...See full text for full abstract.

Keywords

Multiple sclerosis; Palliative care; In-hospital death; Length of stay; Hospital charge

Disciplines

Neuroscience and Neurobiology

Language

English

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