Psychosocial proposal for patients with severe or terminal diseases

Abstract

The very knowledge of health professionals on contemporary concepts of patient care beyond cure needs to be updated, contextualized, considering that, in addition to needed technical approaches, many others need to be valued and learned. Despite the advances in biomedicine, concepts about the terminal patients need a more humanized look, because in many situations, these subjects in the disease process itself are virtually abandoned by the health team, believing that they cannot be of any help, feeling unprepared to really help them to live or to die with dignity, and their suffering minimized. These patients are ill in the physical, psycho-emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions, and their suffering cannot be alleviated simply with a biological approach and technique. As they suffer a total pain, the professional’s look needs to be integral in order to really help them in the dying process.