“Dignity” therapy aids dying patients: study
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Helping dying patients to relive and record important memories and thoughts may ease the distress many feel at the end of life, according to a new study.
Researchers found that this “dignity” therapy that they used in a study of 100 Canadian and Australian patients increased most patients’ sense of purpose and meaning in life, and eased some of their suffering and depression.
The therapy offers patients the chance to talk about their lives and accomplishments, and to say anything they feel their friends and families should know. The process is recorded and transcribed to be given to a family member or friend.
The therapy aims to fill a gap in end-of-life care. While recent years have seen improved treatment of patients’ physical symptoms, depression and anxiety, little is known about how to ease other types of suffering, such as “spiritual or existential anguish,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov, told Reuters Health.
The researchers developed dignity therapy, Chochinov said, after years of study in which they asked dying patients what dying with “dignity” meant to them, and how end-of-life care supports or undermines that ideal.
Of the 100 dying patients who underwent the therapy as part of hospice or home-based care, 91 percent said they were satisfied with it, the researchers found. In addition, 81 percent said it would help or had already helped their families, while more than two thirds said it had enhanced their sense of meaning and purpose in life.
The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Besides increasing patients’ sense of purpose and easing suffering, dignity therapy showed patients that they “are still valued,” and that their words will live on, according to Chochinov, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
He noted that patients who believed the therapy would help their families were particularly likely to report greater feelings of meaning and purpose, and a stronger will to live.
“Whether you are living or dying,” Chochinov said, “so long as in some way you are able to look after those you care about most, there is still reason to wake up in the morning.”
The study makes a “major contribution to advancing care for the terminally ill,” according to an editorial published with the report. “Dignity therapy…is of great importance and shows promise as a novel intervention,” writes Betty Ferrell of the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California.
A larger study of dignity therapy, in Canada, Australia and the U.S., is planned.
SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Oncology, August 20, 2005.
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