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Ginger up recovery
Adding the spice to chemotherapy could reduce nausea and vomiting.
It’ s a staple of stirfries and adds flavour to drinks, but a study has found that ginger may also help people undergoing chemotherapy to go about their daily lives.
La Trobe University’ s Dr Wolfgang Marx presented the trial’ s findings at this month’ s Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting in Queensland.
Marx, who conducted the research for his PhD at Bond University, said previous studies have shown that ginger is effective in relieving the symptoms of seasickness and morning sickness, but less is known about its effect on chemotherapy-induced symptoms.
The trial involved 51 cancer patients from Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Researchers looked at the severity and impact of their chemotherapy symptoms to determine whether ginger supplements made a difference.
They found that taking daily doses of ginger extract could help chemotherapy patients overcome some of the common side effects of chemotherapy, such as nausea and vomiting.
“ We found those in the group who were taking four ginger extract tablets a day, alongside their anti-nausea medication, experienced an improvement in quality of life in relation to nausea, vomiting and fatigue,” Marx said.
He said the trial’ s results, although preliminary, were promising.
“ Now there is a need for a larger study to further explore the safety of ginger supplementation during chemotherapy and whether we should be recommending ginger supplements as a treatment for chemotherapy-induced symptoms.
“ Chemotherapy is a necessary treatment for millions of cancer patients, but many suffer greatly from nausea and vomiting. It would be wonderful if they could find additional relief through a widely available, low-cost intervention.”
The research team recently secured a grant from the Cancer Council to expand the trial and hope to gain more highquality evidence surrounding this use of ginger supplements. ■
Talking death with patients
A free program aims to remove some of the barriers to advance care planning in general practice.
Nurses in general practices across Australia will soon have access to training to help older people and those who are chronically ill discuss advance care planning( ACP) and palliative care.
Through a federally funded program, called Advance, nurses will have access to free online training and face-to-face
2 | nursingreview. com. au workshops, as well as reimbursements for those undertaking the assessments in their clinical practice.
A team of academics and health professionals from across Australia and the UK developed the training materials, and a consortium led by HammondCare will deliver the program.
Associate professor Josephine Clayton, staff specialist physician in palliative medicine with HammondCare, said the ongoing relationship general practice nurses have with patients means they are ideally placed to provide a full supportive care needs assessment.
“ Health professionals can feel uncomfortable discussing dying with their patients,” Clayton said.“ But most patients and carers welcome the opportunity to talk about their symptoms, problems, concerns and priorities. The training the nurses will receive through the program gives them the skills to start the conversations with patients with empathy, care and compassion.”
The program aims to help break down some of the barriers to ACP in general practice and enable practices to more efficiently identify, assess and address the supportive care needs of patients who might be at risk of deteriorating and dying. It will also help nurses identify patients who might benefit from early referral to specialist palliative care services.
Training will take place across metropolitan cities and major regional centres during the next five months. Scholarships are available to regional and rural general practice nurses. ■