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Treat depression in the dying, American College of Physicians Panel Urges
February 1, 2000. Dying patients are often depressed, yet depression - even normal grieving - often goes unrecognized by the patient, family or the physician, according to the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine (ACP-ASIM) End-of-Life Care Consensus Panel. In a new paper, the panel shows physicians how to identify and heal depression in the terminally ill patient and encourages them to do so.
The ACP-ASIM paper says that wise management of normal grieving and treatment of more severe depression can improve the quality of the patient's life. The paper, "Assessing and Managing Depression in the Terminally Ill Patient," appears in the February 1, 2000, issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
The paper discusses three hypothetical cases. One illustrates the assessment and management of normal or appropriate grieving; the second, the diagnosis and treatment of more severe depression; and the third, the assessment and management of patients with ideas of suicide. The paper points out that many symptoms of depression at the end of the life can be easily controlled with state-of-the-art psychosocial interventions and/or drug treatments.
The full text of this paper is available at Annals of Internal Medicine website.
The paper was written by Susan Block, MD, chief of adult psychosocial oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The papers provide guidance to physicians caring for dying patients but are also useful for patients and families. To date, three other papers have been published and are available on the ACP-ASIM Web site http:www.acponline.org/ethics.
ACP-ASIM is USA's largest medical specialty organization, with a membership of 115,000 internal medicine physicians and medical students. Internists provide the majority of health care to adults in America. ACP-ASIM publishes the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine twice monthly.
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