Bonveda's Blog

Assessment is important to diagnose OIC as well as to evaluate the efficacy of the treatment.Patients with advanced
illness receiving palliative care often have multiple symptoms,such as pain and constipation (Emanuel et al, 2008).
Constipation may be the result of opioid analgesia (Skes,2005), and almost all patients on opioids develop constipation
(Emanuel et al, 2008). In addition, a bowel constipation history is an important part of the assessment. An appropriate
description will help establish the diagnosis of OIC and evaluate the treatments used (Economou, 2006).
OIC can be assessed by evaluating the consistency and difficulty of laxation (Thomas etal, 2008).
There are two tools available for these purposes that were developed for constipation in general. The Bristol Scale provides
a quantitative morphologic measurement of the stool and categorizes it into seven grades from separate hard lumps to watery
stool.The Constipation Assessment Scale scores the difficulty of laxation using a questionnaire.