Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:58AM EDT
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers hope a new study will help dispel the myth that medications used in a hospice to relieve pain and other symptoms hasten death. On the contrary, hospice care may actually prolong life, they've found.
"This should be reassuring to those faced with life-threatening illness and their families who are considering hospice care," Dr. Stephen R. Connor of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, told Reuters Health.
Hospice care is not "giving up." It is choosing to live life fully to the end, he said.
Connor and colleagues analyzed the survival of 4,493 terminally ill patients who died within a 3-year period. A total of 2,095 of them received hospice care. Survival was measured as the time to death after a defined "indicative date" of the beginning of the terminal stage of illness.
The team reports in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management that hospice patients lived an average of 29 days longer than non-hospice patients.
"Hospice professionals have often seen patients improve after admission to hospice care," Connor said. "We examined this phenomenon and found that in our study overall patients lived about a month longer while under hospice care."
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL25387220070412?feedType=RSS
No comments:
Post a Comment