Draft Paper on Palliative Care

Answer

Draft Paper on Palliative Care

Abstract

Palliative care is a specialized Medicare for patients with very serious complications, focused on provision of relief from resultant stresses or symptoms of the illness. It aims at improving life quality for both families and their patients, who together face a specific problem associated with a life-threatening illness. It focuses on guidelines provided by the World Health Organization on palliative care among children in the pediatrics sector and how it compares to palliative care among the elderly. There is a clear distinction between palliative care and hospice, even though hospice is considered a form of palliative care. Palliative care addresses one’s physical symptoms like pain, nausea, fatigue and vomiting through providing approaches like physical therapy, nutrition therapy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy to shrink resultant tumors from casing associated problems. It also provides resources to allow patients cope with emotions like anxiety and depression through provision of counseling sessions by recommended support groups and making recommendations for referrals to qualified mental health professionals. The care team provides practical support on how resources can be coordinated to provide appropriate services and finally, it provides spiritual support by helping patients explore different values and related beliefs to find a sense of peace until they fully accept their current situation and help them adapt to living with it positively.

Palliative Care

Introduction

Palliative Care encompasses provision of relief from pain and other related distressing symptoms from an ailing patient with need to affirm life and regard death as a normal process in human life and development. It neither tends to postpone nor hasten death, but integrates both the spiritual and psychological aspects within patient care code of conduct by offering an efficient life support system for helping patients live actively to their point of death (Australia, 2015). It offers support programs to ensure family members easily cope with their patient’s illness especially in their own period of bereavement through application of a team approach to ensure all patient needs are adequately and qualitatively addressed. This paper addresses operations involved in palliative care provision, and how it helps control certain serious illness like cancer among patients.

Generally, palliative care enhances the quality of a person’s life through imposing positive influence in his course of illness. This type of care is strictly applicable during one’s initial stages in the course of illness alongside other therapies necessary for prolonging life, for example radiation therapy and chemotherapy (Wiener et al., 2015). It equally applies all necessary investigations for bettering the general understanding of management approaches for handling distressing clinical complications.

According to report from the World Health Organization 2014 on Palliative Care for Children, this specialized type of care is closely related to the services provided in adult palliative care. The WHO’s guidelines regarding appropriate palliative care approaches to children and their respective families compare with applicable principles applied for controlling pediatric chronic disorders. It involves provision of active total care for a child’s body system, spirit and mind while providing adequate emotional support to the entire family. Palliative care clicks off immediately after diagnosis of a certain illness, and proceeds regardless of whether the child is subjected to proper treatment of the disease or not. Respective health providers thereafter aid in alleviation and evaluation of a child’s social, physical or psychological distress.

An effective palliative care implements a broad multidisciplinary approach by involving the entire family in properly utilizing available community resources while avoiding resultant limitations of resource inadequacy. It is often provided in community health units, tertiary care facilities and children’s homes (Zimmermann et al., 2014). This care type is often provided by professionally trained team of doctors, specialists, nurse practitioners and health providers who work collaboratively with other patient’s doctors with an aim of providing an extra life support layer. Palliative care is appropriate and applicable at any stage of maturity in a serious illness, meaning it can be provided along with other effective and recommended curative treatments.

Palliative care improves one’s quality of life since it comprises of a highly specialized team in offering treatment to people suffering from different disease symptoms of serious illness like congestive heart failure (CHF), kidney disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cancer (Zimmermann et al., 2014). This type of provided care relieves one from pain, depression, constipation, appetite loss, shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue, difficulties in sleeping, constipation and anxiety among different other symptoms that may result into a feeling of distress in patients. Moreover, palliative care supports patients in gaining survival strength to allow them adjust to their daily lives.

The health care support team assigned by healthcare officials spend quality time with patients to make sure they gain a vivid understanding of available treatment choices and options, and to allow patients explore their personal goals. They equally enhance doctorate coordination, understand all patient needs by taking a greater control of patient care (Wiener et al., 2015). They partner with other specialists, family and patients to enhance a collaborative operational program, by spending as much time as possible to allow achievement of necessary communications with family members while supporting victims in every step of the way. Palliative care is readily available to patients at any stage of illness (Zimmermann et al., 2014), and allows creation of a personal relationship with doctors on duty, to make sure all their issues are given an effective approach to help them get over the condition much easily.

A more elaborative example is application of palliative care for improving cancer care among patients. It is offered throughout a patient’s life experience and is highly recommended to start off immediately after diagnosis and continue throughout the patient’s treatment patterns, follow-up care till the end of one’s life (Bakitas et al., 2015).  This care can be provided by a palliative specialist, who is a health related professional, highly specialized in treatment and control of symptoms, side effects of chronic diseases and resultant emotional problems faced by patients. Arguably, any medical professional can equally provide palliative care by fully addressing related effects of a disease to a patient’s performance.

In most cases, palliative care specialists operate in conjunction with the multidisciplinary team for coordinating health care. This team comprises of registered dieticians, doctors, social workers, pharmacists, nurses, psychologists and to a greater extend, a hospital chaplain if any is available (Pratt & Wood, 2015). These specialists often make meaningful recommendations to operational primary care physicians concerning pain management alongside other inclusive symptoms even though most people do not give up primary care physicians to receiving palliative care in treatment (Australia, 2015). Palliative care is just an additional control in to cancer treatment and only chips in when a patient hits the point where further treatment to control it is no-longer warranted hence palliative care becomes a complete focus of care. It is often given to alleviate cancer related emotional issues and symptoms to help ease life transition up-to end of life care.

There is a difference between palliative care and hospice despite it having similar comfort and support principles. Palliative care is often offered in the early times of disease diagnosis, continues being assessed and administered throughout the entire time of disease control (Pratt & Wood, 2015). Hospice is a direct form of palliative care, provided to a patient’s in conditions when treatment therapies are no-longer function and fail to control the existing chronic disease (Bakitas et al., 2015). It gives more focus on caring as opposed to curing and one is eligible to receiving hospice care especially when terminal diagnosis reflects a six months life expectancy meaning one is approaching end of life. Patients often receive palliative care in homes under a physician’s control or within any medical facility offering long-term care.

Finding a reliable place that offers adequate care involves making inquiries regarding names of palliative care specialists at a community level, seeking referrals from local hospices or acquiring information from medical centers and other area hospitals. Appropriate care integrates a person’s needs into care, and takes into account the symptoms of an individual into provision of care (Australia, 2015). It is crucial for family members to receive palliative care because they equally have changing needs and at times become overwhelmed by responsibilities incurred upon diagnosis of the patient’s disease. At times it becomes difficult for most of them to cope with duties to handle obligations, like uncertainties on how to help their own with medical situations, which brings about financial constraints, unnecessary fears and compromising challenges.

Palliative care is also provided to families and patients at the end of life to help them get psychologically prepared for any physical change that may occur among patients when nearing end of life. They address worries relating to loss of loved ones, legacy reflections and relationships while approaching closure of life. They provide emotional support on when to withdraw from therapies, grief counselling and entire transition to hospice. Moreover, palliative care services are fully covered by a patient’s health insurance and depending on prevailing situations, Medicare and Medicaid programs also pay for this type of care (Zimmermann et al., 2014). Patents who are not sure about medical coverage are usually asked to check details with the organization’s medical counsellor or social workers.

Conclusion

Palliative care is very beneficial as it comprises different components regarded helpful to patients with chronic diseases plus their families’ well-being. They control their emotional needs making it easier for patients to open up and have an easy time with medical care. This care allows for improvement of physical symptoms and quality of life. It aids in prevention and relieving of suffering through early detection, identification and impeccable assessment and resultant treatment of pain alongside other psychological, physical and spiritual pains.