【コラム】その他の国々②中国―End-of-life Care in Chinese ICU

The word of hospice originated in the middle ages in Europe and is described as lodging for weak or sick travelers especially kept by a monastic order. Nowadays, hospice care or palliative care is to provide comprehensive care to lighten physical agony and psychological fear of patients in the end-of-life of less than six months or less. The purpose of palliative care is neither to cure the disease nor to prolong the life, also not to speed up the death, but to improve quality of patient' s remaining time and to end patient' s life by respect. At the same time, palliative care maintains patient' s family members' mental health^1）.

　Palliative care becomes a newly rising kind of marginal subject involved medicine, nursing, psychology, sociology and ethics. It studies physiological and psychological traits of dying patients and the rules of end-of-life care practice for them. Palliative care grows out of nothing from strangeness to people' s understanding like a dark flame making each dying patient finish his last step with comfort and respect.