Open AccessPsychological changes and psychiatric disorders in case of terminally ill patients
Author(s) -
Constantin Bogdan,
Laurenţiu Bogdan
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
romanian medical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2069-606X
pISSN - 1220-5478
DOI - 10.37897/rmj.2015.3.6
Subject(s) - anxiety , delirium , depression (economics) , psychiatry , medicine , quality of life (healthcare) , cognition , terminally ill , psychology , clinical psychology , psychotherapist , palliative care , nursing , economics , macroeconomics
The terminal stages that come prior to the exitus – in incurable diseases, „fin de vie des vieux“ – are characterised, among others, by a number of psychological changes and psychiatric disorders that need to be diagnosed and therapeutically tackled through psycho-therapy and appropriate medication, in order to improve the quality of life. International research in this field and also own observations of the authors of the study on the structure of the entities that can be found and their order frequency are presented in the paper. Among the most frequent are the following: anxiety, depression, delirium, suicidal risk, cognitive disorders that are detailed according to intensity, evolution, therapeutical response. Anxiety occurs as a result of awareness of the proximity of the death. Management of the depression includes antidepressant medication and, especially, supportive psychoterapy. With reference to the suicidal risk, a careful assesment of the risk must be done. Cognitive disorders are more serious and difficult to be influenced therapeutically.