| Bed rest | |
|---|---|
 The Invalid (c. 1870), painting by Louis Lang in the Brooklyn Museum | |
| Other names | cessation, expiration, halt, shutdown, stoppage surcease, and termination |
Bed rest, also referred to as the rest-cure, is a medical treatment in which a person lies in bed for most of the time to try to cure an illness.[1] Bed rest refers to voluntarily lying in bed as a treatment and not being confined to bed because of a health impairment which physically prevents leaving bed. The practice is still used although a 1999 systematic review found no benefits for any of the 17 conditions studied and no proven benefit for any conditions at all, beyond that imposed by symptoms.[2]
In the United States, nearly 20% of pregnant women have some degree of restricted activity prescribed[3] despite the growing data showing it to be dangerous, causing some experts to call its use "unethical".[2][4][5]
- ^ Collin (2008). Dictionary of Medical Terms. A&C Black – via Credo Reference.
- ^ a b Allen, C; Glasziou, P; Del Mar, C (9 October 1999). "Bed rest: a potentially harmful treatment needing more careful evaluation". Lancet. 354 (9186): 1229–33. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(98)10063-6. PMID 10520630. S2CID 12196831.
- ^ Bed Rest During Pregnancy
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ McCall, Christina A.; Grimes, David A.; Lyerly, Anne Drapkin (June 2013). ""Therapeutic" bed rest in pregnancy: unethical and unsupported by data". Obstetrics and Gynecology. 121 (6): 1305–1308. doi:10.1097/AOG.0b013e318293f12f. ISSN 1873-233X. PMID 23812466.