What Helps Prolong The Life Of Palliative Patients?

What helps prolong the life of palliative patients?

Fatally ill doomed patients live longer if the nuances of palliative care are discussed with them and they themselves participate in its planning.

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Fatally ill doomed patients live longer if the nuances of palliative care are discussed with them and they themselves participate in its planning. This was shown by a small study from Denmark and published in BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care.

The goal of the scientists was to study how additional, detailed planning for the care of dying patients affects their mortality both at home and in hospitals. But when they found out how many patients had survived for more than a year, they decided to better understand the details.

“If communicating with the patient during extended care planning can improve survival, this is really an important thing to understand,” said study co-author Mette Asbjoern Neergaard, professor at Arhus University.

In expanded planning, patients were asked to talk about what kind of help they want to receive, their desires for treatment and possible resuscitation were discussed, and the question was raised where they would prefer to die.

In the study, Neergaard and his colleagues followed 255 critically ill patients. Half of them had cancer diagnoses, the rest had heart or lung disease. 102 patients participated in deep care planning. The study participants were followed for about three years.

It turned out that 73% of patients who participated in planning their care were alive one year after the start of the study. Of the patients with whom these issues were not discussed, 57% survived. Scientists saw that when comparing rates of cancer patients, this difference is not large: 56% versus 47%.

Among patients with lung and heart diseases in the group discussing the nuances of care, 90% lived for more than a year, and in the group in which the usual care was carried out - 67%.

“Discussing palliative care preferences and thoughts can help patients become more involved in life, take better care of themselves and empower their families to better help them,” Neergaard said.

Scientists remind that patients often cannot start such conversations themselves; they expect a doctor to start them.