Palliative care
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Palliative care is defined in health care as "care alleviating symptoms without curing the underlying disease".[1]
Clinical practice guidelines by the American College of Physicians make five recommendations to health care providers.[2] The first four recommendations are specifically for patients with serious illness who are at the end of life.
- "Clinicians should regularly assess patients for pain, dyspnea, and depression."
- "Clinicians should use therapies of proven effectiveness to manage pain. For patients with cancer, this includes nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids, and bisphosphonates."
- "Clinicians should use therapies of proven effectiveness to manage dyspnea, which include opioids in patients with unrelieved dyspnea and oxygen for short-term relief of hypoxemia."
- "Clinicians should use therapies of proven effectiveness to manage depression. For patients with cancer, this includes tricyclic antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or psychosocial intervention."
- "Clinicians should ensure that advance care planning, including completion of advance directives, occurs for all patients with serious illness."
References
- ↑ Anonymous. Palliative care. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved on 2008-01-15.
- ↑ Amir Qaseem et al., “Evidence-Based Interventions to Improve the Palliative Care of Pain, Dyspnea, and Depression at the End of Life: A Clinical Practice Guideline from the American College of Physicians,” Ann Intern Med 148, no. 2 (January 15, 2008), http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/2/141 (accessed January 15, 2008).