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The Osteopathic Physician and End-of-Life Care

Journal: The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association Date: 2009/08, 109(8):Pages: 462. doi: Subito , type of study: descriptive study

Full text    (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7556/jaoa.2009.109.8.425/html)

Keywords:

descriptive study [69]
osteopathic physicians [203]
palliative care [19]
USA [1656]

Abstract:

Hypothesis: As modern medicine discovers more ways of prolonging life, Americans are indeed living longer, but there is a high price for longevity. In the United States, 41% of people die in hospitals and perhaps as many as 40% die in pain. As a result, end-of-life (EOL) care has become crucial to the care of millions of Americans. Because palliative care requires treatment of the whole patient, the osteopathic physician is uniquely poised to be invaluable to these efforts. Materials and Methods: An extensive search of the literature was performed for previous publications with data on osteopathic physicians and end-of-life care. After considering study characteristics (ie, location, setting, and sample size) for each paper, a multiplier was assigned to the results in order to allocate more weight to heterogeneous sample studies performed in the United States. These methods served to augment the data sets, which best represent the population of the United States as a whole. Results: The average US-trained osteopathic physician is more than twice as likely to enter a geriatrics fellowship program than the average US-trained allopathic physician. The osteopathic advantage in end-of-life care can be largely attributed to OMT (osteopathic manipulative treatment). Osteopathic manipulative treatment has been shown effective at improving quality of life in patients suffering from cancer, disability, heart disease, stroke, neuropathy, vascular dementia, stroke, myopathy, and Parkinson disease. When OMT is not a part of these patients' treatment, their plans often include additional pharmacologic agents that usually cause unwanted side effects. Conclusion: With the hands-on care that osteopathic physicians provide and the unique benefits that OMT offers the patient, this osteopathic brand of medicine holds a unique and vital role in this developing arena. Therefore, the American Osteopathic Association and other osteopathic organizations must collaborate with other professional organizations and state governments in order to educate health professionals and the public, with the goal of investigating the best practices, and incorporating to EOL the highest standard of quality care that modern medicine has to offer.


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