Controlled Sedation to Treat Pain and Severe Physical Symptoms in Terminally Ill Patients Explored in Journal of Palliative Medicine.LARCHMONT, N.Y. -- Knowing that effective relief from severe pain and distress at the end of life is available will bring comfort to patients who may worry that nothing can be done to ease their suffering, report the authors of two papers in the February issue (Volume 8, Number 1) of Journal of Palliative Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., and the official journal of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. The papers are available free online at www.liebertpub.com/jpm. Terminally ill Terminally Ill When a person is not expected to live more than 12 months. Notes: Any gifts given out by the afflicted person at this time may be considered as a dispersion of the estate rather than a gift. cancer patients often fear that if their pain and suffering become unbearable conventional pain relief strategies will not be effective. But two case studies report that controlled sedation Sedation Definition Sedation is the act of calming by administration of a sedative. A sedative is a medication that commonly induces the nervous system to calm. Purpose The process of sedation has two primary intentions. , in which sedative drugs are prescribed in doses designed to reduce awareness of physical symptoms and psychological distress psychological distress The end result of factors–eg, psychogenic pain, internal conflicts, and external stress that prevent a person from self-actualization and connecting with 'significant others'. See Humanistic psychology. , can be used near the end of life to alleviate symptoms that do not respond to maximal medical therapy. The medication used has a calming, sedating effect, allowing patients to approach the end of life in a peaceful state. Hiroyuki Kohara, M.D., Ph.D., from the Palliative Care palliative care (paˑ·lē·ā·tiv kerˑ), n an approach to health care that is concerned primarily with attending to physical and emotional comfort rather Unit of the National Sanyo Hospital in Yamaguchi, Japan, and colleagues report on the effectiveness of sedation in relieving severe, physical symptoms in terminally ill cancer patients and the effects of sedation on consciousness. Major symptoms requiring sedation were severe shortness of breath Shortness of Breath Definition Shortness of breath, or dyspnea, is a feeling of difficult or labored breathing that is out of proportion to the patient's level of physical activity. , pain, agitation, and nausea/vomiting. Brigit Taylor and Robert McCann, M.D., of the University of Rochester The University of Rochester (UR) is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research university located in Rochester, New York. The university is one of 62 elected members of the Association of American Universities. , School of Medicine and Dentistry, in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , present a case study in which a terminally ill cancer patient is assured of receiving sedation if his/her pain and physical symptoms become severe. The authors distinguish between controlled sedation to relieve intolerable suffering and active euthanasia active euthanasia Medical ethics The practice of injecting a Pt with a lethal dose of medication with the primary intention of ending the Pt's life. Cf Active euthanasia. , defining controlled sedation as the use of medication to bring a patient to the point of unconsciousness to relieve intolerable suffering before an inevitable death, but not to hasten or bring about death. "The drive for physician-assisted suicide is substantially diminished when the public and their physicians know about this medical development," says Charles F. von Gunten, M.D., Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Palliative Medicine. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including AIDS Patient Care and STDs, Disease Management, and The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 60 journals, newsmagazines, and books is available at www.liebertpub.com. |
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