PURPOSE: This study examined the effectiveness of a hand massage combined with analgesics on pain control in hospice patients with terminal cancer. METHODS: This study is a quasi-experimental study with a single group time series design. The study included 25 terminal cancer patients who were admitted to a hospice ward. Each patient’s pain level was measured after analgesics use only (control group). When patients complained of pain again, the pain level was assessed after administering a combination of hand massage and analgesics (experimental group). As for the experimental treatment, the participants were provided with oil hand massage on each hand for 5 minutes. RESULTS: The experimental group and the control group showed no significant differences in the changes of pain score (F=0.74, P=0.3939). CONCLUSION: Although the pain level of the experimental group did not significantly improve compared with the control group, their pain levels tended to be low to begin with. Thus, a complementary utility value of hand massage cannot be completely excluded in terminal cancer patients. Since the pain level significantly changed according to the dosage of analgesic, nurses need more education and research on analgesic drug therapy for terminal cancer patients.
Analgesics* ; Drug Therapy ; Education ; Hand* ; Hospice Care ; Hospices ; Humans ; Massage* ; Non-Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic

OBJECTIVES: Gastric resection may predispose gallstone formation. However, the mechanism has not been clearly understood. To evaluate the relationship between gastric resection and gallstone formation, we compared gallbladder(GB) motility in gastrectomized patients and control subjects. METHODS: We compared the GB volume and ejection fraction of the 46 gastrectomized patients with 37 healthy controls using real time ultrasonography. RESULTS: GB volume increased significantly in the gastrectomized group in fasting (30.2 13.9 ml). The GB volume after a fatty meal was greater in the gastrectomized group (12.6 6.4 ml) than in the control group (4.3 3.3 ml) (p +ADw- 0.01). A significant reduction of ejection fraction was found in gastrectomized patients (56.9 13.0+ACU-) in comparison with the control group (75.5 16.1+ACU-) (p +ADw- 0.01). The GB ejection fraction had a poor correlation to the postoperative period (r +AD0- 0.232). CONCLUSION: A gastrectomy appears to be a risk factor of GB dysmotility, which may play a major role in gallstone formation in gastrectomized patients.
Adult ; Aged ; Cholelithiasis/ultrasonography ; Cholelithiasis/etiology+ACo- ; Comparative Study ; Eating ; Endosonography ; Fasting ; Female ; Gallbladder/ultrasonography ; Gallbladder/physiopathology+ACo- ; Gallbladder Emptying ; Gastrectomy/adverse effects+ACo- ; Gastrointestinal Motility ; Human ; Male ; Middle Age ; Probability ; Prospective Studies ; Reference Values ; Risk Assessment ; Stomach Neoplasms/surgery+ACo-