Allowing PRN Orders for Morphine May Result in Untimely Death For COPD Patients

Hospice Patients Alliance:

Patients in hospice who have diseases without severe pain may not need morphine for comfort. Some take other analgesics and some take none. But patients who have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or "COPD" may especially be sensitive to the adverse effects of morphine. COPD patients have breathing difficulties and anxiety which can sometimes be lessened by very small dosages of a sedative and/or a very small dosage of morphine. However, given in too high a dose, morphine can seriously interfere with a patient's ability to breathe. In fact, anyone who is given a dosage of morphine which is much higher than they are accustomed to, may stop breathing.

One of morphine's main adverse effects is slowing down the respiratory rate, i.e., respiratory depression. If the dosage of morphine is too high for what the patient is accustomed to, the respiratory depression can become severe and actually stop the breathing periodically for a few seconds or many seconds. This pattern of breathing where the patient stops breathing (skipping breaths) and then starts breathing again is termed "apnea." Apnea commonly occurs as a result of the terminal illness and the dying process, when certain metabolic changes occur in the patient's body. If the breathing is stopped completely without restarting, the patient dies. Because COPD patients have compromised breathing already, ... very inefficient breathing, overly high doses of morphine can quickly cause these patients to stop breathing.