Another study, this time from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, confirming the main factors that help affect quality of life for terminal cancer patients:
- Intensive care stays during the final week of their life.
- Hospital deaths
- Level of patient worry at the start of the study
- Meditation or religious prayer at baseline
- Where the cancer care took place
- The use of feeding tubes during their last week
- Pastoral care inside the clinic or hospital
- Chemotherapy during their last week of life
- The patient-doctor therapeutic alliance where the patient felt they were being treated as a whole person
And a good quote on how reducing patient worry can also help:
“By reducing patient worry, encouraging contemplation, integrating pastoral care within medical care, fostering a therapeutic alliance between patient and physician that enables patients to feel dignified, and preventing unnecessary hospitalizations and receipt of life-prolonging care, physicians can enable their patients to live their last days with the highest possible level of comfort and care.”
