Talk:Terminal illness

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 July 2019 and 23 August 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jackieelsokkary, Bschen12, Stevenvpham, Ksucsf19.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:52, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

palliative care

The explanation that palliative care is normally offered to all patients is too simplified. Palliative care is may include treatments not normally offered to all patients. Eg, pain relief that incurs a high physiological cost: morphine and radiation come to mind. --Una Smith (talk) 04:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. Does my recent change address this concern (adequately, or even at all)? I'd be happy to hear any other thoughts about this article.

I think there is some diversity of opinion regarding the proper metes and bounds of palliative care. The main article on that topic, for example, claims that the term applies to "any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than providing a cure," which could include minor interventions (like giving paracetamol to an influenza patient to reduce a fever). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Inheritance of Hope

I don't really see the point in linking to Inheritance of Hope. It's a super-tiny non-profit organization that happens to have chosen terminal illnesses as its focus. It is literally one of thousands of non-profits around the world with this focus. (Every hospice and palliative care organization, for example.) What's so special about this one, that it should be listed in this article when none of the others are? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Terminal Illness

There is NO legal definition of this term at all: the Department of Works and Pension use a different estimated survival time to the Institute of Insurers. Whether a patient is 'terminally ill' or not is exclusively determined by their NHS Consultant - and if he/she has a long waiting list, and the patient is elderly or disabled, the scope for unblocking beds by 'upstaging the imminence condition' is enormous. The practice is widespread.

The link you gave in your article defines Terminal Illness thus:

A condition that is 'reasonably expected' to result in the death of the patient within a relatively short period of time, whether medical treatment is received or not. Often an arbitrary six-month period is used by third-party payers and care providers in order to ration or appropriately utilize scarce resources. In the presence of terminal illness, palliative care may include the treatment of physical changes secondary to the declining medical condition, at times employing the same therapies that in other instances are used for curative purposes (for example, shrinking a tumor with radiation in order to slow its growth, where the radiation will not cure the patient). Some studies show that individuals with a terminal illness prefer their doctors and other care providers to think of them first and foremost as persons who are living with a life threatening condition, rather than as dying patients.

I am a medical journalist (non MD) in the US and author of a book about end of life medicine. I am intuitively curious about the definition of "terminal illness" as one expected to result in death in six months or less. As the entry, states, this is arbitrary and is a legalistic rather than medical definition -- it categorizes whether or not one can receive benefits such as hospice. What would be the phrase, then, to describe fatal illnesses (incurable, progressive, inexorably ending in death) that take more than six months to kill? I think of ALS, Alzheimers, other dementias, many forms of heart failure, other forms of vital organ failure -- kidney failure, COPD, etc. If these are not "terminal illnesses" what are they? Could someone more informed add a phrase to describe them? (Chronic, progressive, multiple comorbidities) Or should the definition of "terminal illness" be refined to indicate that the "dying soon" aspect of this definition is about a legal definitions, not a medical one? I know an RN who has been functioning well with Stage IV cancer for five years. She's quite clear that she has an incurable illness that will end in her death. If you asked her, I think she'd say she has a terminal illness. thanks. Katy Butler, author Knocking on Heaven's Door. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.235.141.89 (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

79.77.10.61 (talk) 04:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)DrLofthouse79.77.10.61 (talk) 04:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

As a new contributor, I may be commenting in the wrong place -- please forgive errors if so. I have concerns about using 'cancer', or any category of diseases that includes non-terminal variants, or variants that are by degrees treatable or curable, as a general example of terminal illness. With an accurate and well operationalized definition of terminal illness, examples in text do not seem necessary and could be very misleading. CatV71.09 (talk) 03:34, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:30, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

NCI source

This:

• National Cancer Institute. "End-of-Life Care: Questions and Answers" 2010-02-09.

is an acceptable source, but it doesn't say anything about 100% of patients readily accepting a terminal diagnosis, or that depression is transient, or anything about stages of grief. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Educational Assignment

Hello, my name is Travis Freetly and I am working on an

by editing the terminal illness page. I would like any feedback you can give on my edit, and I apologize for the large amount of editing. This is how my class at Clemson University is set up, with large amounts of words change and additions being required. Thanks.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Travis Freetly (talk • contribs)

Unfortunately, your edit removed most of the inline references from the article, along with many links to other articles within Wikipedia. You will need to be careful to preserve existing content while making improvements or additions.-gadfium 23:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Possible Changes and Additions

After reading the article, these are a few revisions and additions that I thought of. Management:

• create more subsections with other options that terminal patients may elect to do such as continued treatment to extend life, physician-assisted suicide, or hospice care

Caregiving:

• create another subsection regarding issues with opioids and painkillers for terminal patients
• include typical living conditions for terminally ill patients, with sections describing life in a hospital, at home, or in a palliative care center

Refusal of Food and Hydration:

• seems like more of an aside, maybe move it within a different section, possibly one focused on patient lifestyle

Dying:

• logistical details about how people choose to die (whether or not to be resuscitated, whether or not to take drastic measures to save, whether or not to choose physician-assisted suicide, etc.)

Misc:

• section about government policies and insurance regarding end-of-life care
• section regarding terminal illness patients from a medical point of view and how it relates to healthcare spending, doctor to patient relationships, and doctors' predictions about how long patients will live
• section on advance directives and living wills
• section on emotions that the terminal patient may go through, such as death anxiety
• section about how terminal illness affects caregivers could be interesting, especially in the case of pediatric terminal illness

While this is in no way a comprehensive list, here are a few sources that could be used for information in different sections mentioned above.

Advance Directives

Opioid Prescriptions for Terminal Patients

Changes in food needs

Parents of children with terminal illness

Caregivers

End of life in the Emergency Department

Palliative Care and Public Health

Palliative Care outcomes

Social workers and chronic illness

Please let me know what you think of these revisions. Thanks! Bunnydew15 (talk) 05:59, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Nice list of goals. Please make sure that other group members assign themselves to this article before making their individual edits. The insertion of citations contains errors; correct version is like so (check source for details): Health policy (talk) 05:23, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Foundations 2 2019 Group 1A

-Talk about transplant as a option for patients who are terminally ill(specifically Kidney and Liver failure) -Talk about different criteria for terminally ill patients to qualify for a transplant -Difficulties with matching with a potential donor -Differences between opt-in and opt out systems. -Timeline of transplants Stevenvpham (talk) 22:16, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Any Statistics?

Are there any statistics available on how many people receive terminal illness diagnoses each year (or living with the diagnosis) that we could add into the article? Deet (talk) 19:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Terminal illness

Terminal illness be beand in india?what are you thoughts on it. 49.15.242.159 (talk) 12:42, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology of the Family

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2023 and 4 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Stitch2001 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Boss4L1020 (talk) 19:38, 26 February 2023 (UTC)