How to care for advanced lung cancer

All cancer patients are extremely painful in the late stage due to long-term chronic consumption, cachexia, and functional disorders caused by the spread of tumors. The care of patients with advanced tumors should include palliative treatment, symptom management, and meticulous clinical care and caring, so as to improve the quality of life of patients. Compared with the treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer, the care of patients with advanced lung cancer is also very important, which directly affects the quality of life and survival of patients with rectal cancer.

1. Pain Control

Western medicine is generally not recommended for pain relief, as it mostly works by anesthetizing nerves, which only treats the symptoms but not the root cause. Some Western medicines, such as pethidine, are addictive and can cause drug resistance. It is recommended to use Chinese medicine for treatment. Pain is the main symptom of patients with advanced lung cancer and has a great impact on patients. For the control of cancer pain, the three-step analgesia plan should be correctly understood and applied:

1. Surface analgesia: The purpose of analgesia can be achieved by stimulating the skin around the painful area or the corresponding healthy side. The stimulation methods can be massage, applying cooling analgesics, etc., or various temperatures of stimulation, or using a 65℃ hot water bottle on a wet towel for local hot compress, each time for 20 minutes, which can achieve a certain analgesic effect.

2. Attention diversion analgesia method: according to the patient's hobbies, you can play some fast-paced music and let the patient clap along with the rhythm; or let the patient read some jokes, humorous novels, and tell a crosstalk for fun. You can also let the patient sit in a comfortable chair, close his eyes, and think about his childhood fun, or think about anything he wants to think about, 15 minutes each time, usually 2 hours after eating, and then close his eyes and sit quietly for 2 minutes, all of which can achieve the purpose of diversion analgesia.

3. Relaxation analgesia: Relaxation of the whole body can make you feel light and comfortable, and muscle relaxation can block the pain response. Let the patient close his eyes, sigh, burp, and then bend his hips and knees to lie flat, relax his abdominal muscles and back muscles, and breathe slowly. Or let the patient close his eyes in a quiet environment and breathe in and out slowly and deeply, so that fresh air can enter the lungs to achieve the purpose of analgesia.

2. Relieve symptoms

1. Prevention of bedsores: Lung cancer patients in the advanced stage generally have poor nutritional status, sometimes with systemic edema, which makes bedsores very easy to develop, and they spread rapidly and are difficult to cure. It is particularly important to prevent bedsores. Reduce local pressure, change body positions on time, and use air rings, soft pillows, etc. to cushion the parts of the body that are prone to pressure to avoid long-term pressure. Keep the skin clean, especially for patients with incontinence, keep the bed clean and flat, and use a baking lamp to irradiate the broken skin to keep the local area dry.

2. Relieve symptoms: Fever is one of the main symptoms of lung cancer. Patients should be advised to keep warm and prevent colds to avoid pneumonia. For irritating coughs, cough suppressants can be given. When patients have persistent coughs at night, they can drink hot water to relieve irritation in the throat. If there is coughing up blood, hemostatic drugs should be given. When coughing up blood in large quantities, notify the doctor immediately, tilt the patient's head to one side, clear the blood in the mouth in time to prevent suffocation, and assist the doctor in rescue.

3. Observation and care of the condition: Lung cancer patients in the advanced stage often have metastasis of the tumor to different parts, causing different symptoms. They should be carefully observed and given corresponding care. For example, if the tumor metastasizes to the liver or brain, they may suddenly become unconscious, convulse, or have blurred vision. Nurses should detect the disease in time and give symptomatic treatment.