{"id":3957,"date":"2022-01-08T04:59:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T04:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/?p=3957"},"modified":"2022-01-08T04:59:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T04:59:25","slug":"palliative-care-lets-make-the-last-days-bearable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/palliative-care-lets-make-the-last-days-bearable\/","title":{"rendered":"Palliative care : Let’s make the last days bearable"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of individuals and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Palliative care is not synonymous with end-of-life care. For many years, palliative care was exclusively for those with cancer and patients with progressive end-stage disorders.<\/p>\n

Targets of palliative care:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It helps patients cope with the concept of death as part of a normal life process, to die with dignity.<\/li>\n
  2. To provide pain relief.<\/li>\n
  3. To neither hasten nor postpone death.<\/li>\n
  4. To provide psychological and spiritual care and support to the patient.<\/li>\n
  5. To help patients live as actively and independently as possible until death.<\/li>\n
  6. To provide comfort and bereavement support to the family.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Who can provide palliative care?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    There are two groups of health and social care professionals who can provide palliative care. These are:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Non-specialists who provide day-to-day care and support of patients and their primary caregivers in their homes and hospitals. They address and understand the patient care needs and also seek advice from\/refer to specialist palliative care services when the situations become more challenging.<\/li>\n
    2. Specialist palliative care providers are consultant palliative care physicians\/nurses. These specialists may provide the care via day centres, hospital, hospice, or community teams.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What are the components of palliative care?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Good symptom control is one of the baseline requirements of palliative care.<\/li>\n
      2. Supportive care includes teaching the patient self-help and educating them about how to keep themselves well and as active as possible.<\/li>\n
      3. Involvement of family and caregivers.<\/li>\n
      4. Providing psychological support to patient and family.<\/li>\n
      5. Providing social support to patient and family.<\/li>\n
      6. Providing spiritual support to patient and family.<\/li>\n
      7. Establishing communication.<\/li>\n
      8. Provide support for emotional adjustment.<\/li>\n
      9. Rehabilitation.<\/li>\n
      10. Treating disease symptoms. In cancer patients, it also helps patients cope with side-effects of treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy.<\/li>\n
      11. Addressing sexual problems, infertility or and loss of libido.<\/li>\n
      12. Addressing problems related to loss of work-days, occupation and feelings of worthlessness.<\/li>\n
      13. Dietary guidance and advice to deal with loss of appetite, weight loss, and develop healthy nutrition.<\/li>\n
      14. Advice regarding travelling and entertainment.<\/li>\n
      15. Advice and assistance regarding financial problems.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Palliative care involves care for people with cancer or with long-term serious illnesses such as kidney failure, AIDS, Alzheimer\u2019s disease, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

        A palliative care team may consist of:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Palliative care physicians\/nurses.<\/li>\n
        2. Private nursing providers.<\/li>\n
        3. Patient groups.<\/li>\n
        4. Family, friends,neighbours, volunteers.<\/li>\n
        5. Counsellors, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists.<\/li>\n
        6. Dieticians.<\/li>\n
        7. Occupational and speech therapists.<\/li>\n
        8. Religious and spiritual care workers.<\/li>\n
        9. Complementary therapists such as those providing massage, acupuncture, etc.<\/li>\n
        10. Social workers.<\/li>\n
        11. Benefit advisers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of individuals and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[289,278,266],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-guidance-counselling","category-old-age"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3958,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/3958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moho.loopshell.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}