Medical treatment is the care and supervision of a patient with an illness or injury. It includes examinations, diagnostic tests and therapeutic interventions. Treatments are used to restore health and alleviate pain, discomfort, or disability. They may be applied to the skin, swallowed or injected into the body. Many diseases cause physical discomfort in the form of pain, nausea, dizziness, coughing, shortness of breath or general’malaise’. However, some illnesses don’t cause any pain or distress (leprosy, syringomyelia and coma).
Physicians treat patients with diseases by prescribing medical treatments. These medical treatments are sometimes invasive and may carry significant side effects, which must be considered in the decision to proceed with them. Patients have a right to informed consent, which means that they must be fully informed about the benefits and risks of treatment before agreeing to it. They also have a right to refuse a treatment or procedure. In cases of emergency, doctors can give medical treatment without a patient’s consent if it is likely to save their life.
Some diseases cannot be cured. When curative treatments have failed, they are replaced by palliative care, which aims to make the patient comfortable. It may include medicines that relieve pain, such as morphine or opioids, and narcotic analgesics such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. It can also include other medications to control symptoms, such as sedatives for anxiety and antidepressants for depression.
Medications are the most common medical treatment. They are either drugs, which destroy bacteria, parasites or fungus or hormones, which regulate certain bodily functions. Medications can be administered topically, orally, by injection or intravenously or by mouth. They are used to treat diseases and conditions ranging from viral infections to cancer.
The goal of most medical treatment is to cure a disease or condition. However, some treatments can be abused and have serious side effects. Medical treatment can also be expensive and insurance does not always cover the cost of all treatments. Some treatments can be experimental and are not available to everyone. They are often part of a clinical trial sponsored by companies or Federal offices and agencies, and are conducted in hospitals, medical centers, clinics and other facilities.
Physicians have an ethical obligation to discuss with patients and their families their feelings about futile treatments. They should be able to explain clearly when a specific treatment is unlikely to benefit them and the reasons for this. This may lead to difficult discussions, especially when physicians’ professional judgment differs from the patients’ or their family’s preferences. However, frank discussions can ultimately result in reasonable and morally sound solutions.