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Helping terminally ill patients pass on their final thoughts may help give them a better quality of life, a new study suggests.

Canadian researchers found that terminally ill patients reported higher quality of life and a greater will to live after participating in "dignity therapy." In dignity therapy, patients are guided through a conversation with a trained interviewer about their life, feelings, memories and their hopes and dreams for their families. Recordings of the conversation are then used to create an edited transcript that is given to patients that they can share with others.

In the study, published in The Lancet Oncology online July 7, patients were asked questions such as "What are the most important roles you had in life?" and "What have you learned about life that you would want to pass along to others?"

In an early trial using dignity therapy, 68% of patients reported an increased sense of purpose and 67% an increased sense of meaning after participating in the therapy.

Lead researcher Harvey Chochinov of the University of Manitoba says that on every single measure of well-being, dignity therapy outperformed control groups who received standard end-of-life care. The study involved 441 patients, and ages ranged from 18 into the 90s; average age was 65.

Chochinov called the patients' experiences extraordinary. One man, who had battled alcoholism and was estranged from most of his family, wanted his grandchildren to know who he was so they could choose a different path.

"Everybody's story is profound because it's genuinely theirs," Chochinov says.

Families also benefit from the transcript: It allows them to reconnect with or hold on to the words of their loved one.

(c) Copyright 2011 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

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