Palliative Care is highly specialized care administered to patients suffering from serious ailments or end-stage disease. Patient-centric palliative care nursing provides the required support to improve the quality of life for both patients and their families. Palliative therapy is specifically need-based and may include physical, psychological, social or spiritual intervention or a combination of these. With the rise of the aging population, elderly palliative care assumes critical significance as dangerous illnesses are largely prevalent in this social segment.
Palliative care for cancer patients happens to be one of the most sought forms of assistance and hope. Likewise, palliative care for dementia is also in high demand in the senior communities as elders face cognitive decline and mental issues with the progression of age. Particularly, community palliative care has become a boon for caregivers in developing countries where there is an increasing case of life-threatening conditions. In this context, it is noteworthy to mention Athulya Assisted Living, a premier abode for assisted living in Chennai. It not only provides affordable and well-equipped senior living spaces but also offers specialized nursing care and palliative support with state-of-art clinical infrastructure and dedicated hand-picked staff.
Benefits of Palliative Care to Patients and Families
- Supports the family to proactively deal with probable health complications of patients and prevents depression, suicidal tendencies and other mental ailments.
- Reduces the stress on the family members by promptly catering to the physical needs and problems of the patient like pain, breathing difficulties and appetite loss.
- Holistically addresses all areas of life for both patients and families by keeping the former comfortable.
- Improves quality of life by giving the required the strength to carry on with their everyday life and routines.
- Increases the patient’s lifespan so that they can spend more time with their near and dear ones with better health.
- Facilitates families to match the treatment roadmaps with the set goals so that they have more control over the care plans and medical decision-making.
- Provides an extra layer of support to the family when they need it the most by connecting them to the doctors and specialists who collectively work as a team to achieve the best care outcomes.
- Helps families to deal and cope up with stress, fear, anxiety and depression they are experiencing due to the patient’s illness and chronic suffering. Palliative care supports the families through professional counselling, support groups, referrals and social networking.
- Assists families in dealing with practical issues including monetary concerns, insurance hassles legal challenges and bereavement counselling. This is done by guiding them for making the right treatment choices, providing financial guidance and making connections to the right resources.
- Aids in the exploration of the spiritual route and channelizes beliefs and values onto the road of acceptance and peace.
- Avoids burnout of caregivers by providing reliable respite care to the patient.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Palliative Care
- Can you share some statistics on Palliative Care?
- Almost forty million people worldwide require palliative care annually (Source: WHO).
- Out of this, nearly seventy-eight percent of them live in countries with low and middle- income groups.
- Unfortunately, only about fourteen percent of the patients who need palliative care worldwide receive it.
- Name a few factors that hinder adequate palliative care and hinder accessibility.
- Restrictive regulations on essential palliative medications like morphine and other drugs including opioid analgesics and respiratory distress medicines
- Rising burden of non-communicable diseases and a few communicable disease
- Huge dearth of national policies, programmes, resources and training on palliative care in the healthcare industry
- Apart from cancer and dementia what are the other diseases in patients that call for palliative care?
Cardiovascular diseases like Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), chronic respiratory disorders, diabetes, kidney failure, end-stage liver disease, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, neurodegenerative disease, drug-resistant tuberculosis and congenital anomalies
- Enlist the healthcare professionals involved in palliative care.
Physicians, specialists, nursing staff, volunteers, paramedics, pharmacists, social workers, counsellors and therapists.
- Enumerate the goals of a palliative care plan.
- Alleviates symptoms and treatment side-effects
- Improves understanding of disease and its progression
- Addresses practical and spiritual needs
- Helps to cope better with feelings and trauma related to illness
- Provides better access to additional supporting resources
- Assists in understanding treatment options, making the right choices and coordinating care
Palliative Care is certainly a promising alternative for family caregivers as they get the much-needed relief from constantly attending to chronically ill patients without compromising on the quality of care rendered. You may contact Athulya Assisted Living to avail this facility for your beloved elders.
