Easing pain in the sick and dying_美文_双语阅读-查字典英语网

Easing pain in the sick and dying

The Association says one of its goals is to provide palliative care to both adults and children. This includes children whose parents have died. Another goal is to get palliative care added to the national health plans of African governments. Still another is to urge that everyone studying health care and medicine learn palliative care methods.

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STEVE EMBER: Sales of some kinds of pain medicine are restricted in the United States. Doctors must first contact a drugstore to order the medicine for their patients. The order is called a prescription.

Doctors usually prescribe opiate drugs only for patients with severe pain. Opiates include codeine, methadone and morphine. Most of these narcotic drugs come from the poppy flower. People have used one opiate, opium, for pain for more than two thousand years. A newer drug, oxycodone, is called an opioid. An opioid is similar to an opiate. Doctors use it to control moderate to severe pain over a long period.

BOB DOUGHTY: Many doctors prescribe narcotic drugs for patients with lasting, severe pain. Such drugs may ease suffering. But they can also be addictive. The user may need increasing amounts to get the same effect.

Strong drugs must be taken carefully. People can accidentally kill themselves by taking too many pills or mixing medicines. Sometimes this happens when a person takes drugs and also drinks too much alcohol.

STEVE EMBER: In two thousand eight, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study of unplanned deaths from prescription drugs. The study reported about deaths in the American state of West Virginia. The report said about 66% of those who died there from prescription drugs apparently had no prescription.