Aromatherapy in Palliative Care: A Single-Institute Retrospective Analysis Evaluating the Effect of Lemon Oil Pads against Nausea and Vomiting in Advanced Cancer Patients

Simple Summary Palliative care aims to improve the quality of life for patients with serious illnesses by improving symptoms. Many patients with advanced diseases suffer from nausea and vomiting. In addition to evidenced-based treatments, patients with advanced diseases often seek for complementary and integrative therapies. Aromatherapy is commonly used to alleviate the various symptoms of palliative care patients and is well accepted by both patients and their caregivers. We retrospectively evaluated the efficacy of using lemon oil pads against nausea and vomiting in our palliative care unit and found a positive effect against nausea and vomiting in this patient group. Aromatherapy is regularly used in the University Hospital Krems's palliative care unit. In a retrospective analysis, we investigated whether there were improvements in nausea and vomiting in patients with advanced cancers over a time span of 24 months. Data collection used the medical records of patients who were institutionally approved to receive routine aroma applications for alleviating nausea and vomiting. The efficacy of using lemon oil pads was tested with one-dimensional chi-squared tests. Sixty-six patients received 222 applications of lemon oil on cotton pads; no data were available for 17 applications. The adequate relief of nausea and vomiting was reported for 149 (73%) applications, whereas no symptom control was seen for 56 (27%) applications. For the 56 applications without symptom control, first- and second-line rescue medications were successful in 53 and 3 cases, respectively. The use of aromatherapy with lemon oil pads against nausea and vomiting was feasible for 73% of all applications. All patients who did not benefit from aromatherapy had effective symptom control with a rescue medication. Large randomized prospective trials are necessary to evaluate the benefit of the use of lemon oil pads against nausea and vomiting in patients with advanced cancer.

Automated summary

This study found that using lemon oil pads can effectively alleviate nausea and vomiting in patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative care. Aromatherapy is a well-accepted complementary therapy in this field, and it was feasible for the majority of patients.