Symptom Management - Improve Health

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What is symptom management?

What is symptom management, exactly? Symptom management is commonly defined as the prevention or treatment, as early as possible, the symptoms of a disease, side effects caused by treatment of a disease, and psychological, social, and spiritual problems related to a disease or its treatment.

Why is symptom management important?

Appropriate symptom management is crucial to the health outcomes and experience of the person receiving care, their family and carers. Matters regarding appropriate medication use, non-pharmacological considerations and rationalising treatments are important.

What is effective symptom management?

Effective symptom management aims to provide comfort and has the potential to increase quality of life for patients and families. Support from specialist palliative care is associated with less symptom burden at home [ 3] or in hospital [ 4 ].

What are symptom management strategies?

Symptom management strategies: A total of 167 treatment strategies were identified across the various symptom management guidelines. Of 102 pharmacologic strategies, 47 were conventional medications and 55 were dietary supplements (e.g., herbs, vitamins, probiotics, homeopathic or ayurvedic medicines).

How do you support symptom management?

In many cases, you will support symptom management with a mix of pharmacological (with medicines) and non-pharmacological approaches. This includes supporting patients, families, and carers and providing feedback to other members of the care team including prescribers.

What Is Symptom Management

1. https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/palliative-care/guideline/symptom-management
2. https://www.psychreg.org/symptom-management-mental-health/
3. https://bmcpalliatcare.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12904-022-00904-9
4. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/palliative-care/what-is-palliative-care.html
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6428467/
6. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/servicesandsupport/Palliative-care-dealing-with-common-symptoms
7. https://pcc4u.org.au/learning/modules/module3/m3_section3/m3_activity6/
8. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-5164-8_7
9. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-18986-007

Symptom Management Information

1. https://www.caresearch.com.au/Health-Professionals/Nurses/Clinical-Care/Symptom-Management
2. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/about/objective-2-improve-care-for-hardtomanage-symptoms
3. https://www.emerge.org.au/stepwise-symptom-management/
4. https://www.ons.org/onf/47/5/guideline-recommended-symptom-management-strategies-cross-over-two-or-more-cancer-symptoms
5. https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/caringhome-symptom-management-for-palliative-patients