Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
the role of the nurse in palliative care
3. Literature review palliative care
the importance of palliative care
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: the role of the nurse in palliative care
Question 1 Palliative care approach is to bring the quality of life for incurable disease patients. Palliative care provides services and medical care to relieve physical and psychological pain for patients. In addition, palliative care also provides spiritual support patients at the end of their life and their families (WHO 2002). Palliative care nurses have an important role in improving the quality of life for patients. Palliative care nurses will provide care and support for patients at the end of life and support their families (Kaasalainen et al. 2013). Nurses can apply their skills in providing care for patients thorough assessment, working with allied health care team members and providing continuity of care (Kaasalainen et al. 2013). Nurses are involved in many activities that caring for patients throughout the dying process such as managing mobilities and medications, controlling pain and supporting the families (Kaasalainen et al. 2013). Nurses also help to educate patients’ families about the positive approach to grieving and the benefits of palliative care for the community (Kaasalainen et al. 2013). Question 2 An Advance Care Directive or ‘Living Will’ is a written statement of someone's wishes for their medical treatment choices. An Advance Care Directive can be created immediately by anyone who holds the capability to do. An Advance Care Directive is still observed in the future when the person becomes too unwell to make decisions about health care choices for themselves due to sickness or trauma (Office of the Public Advocate 2014). According to The Medical Treatment Act 1988, a person has right to refuse palliative care treatments and medical intervention. Firstly, an adult person (over 18) has a capacity to ... ... middle of paper ... ...ed away. Supporting from the colleagues is one of the way in helping nurses go through grief (Jonas-Simpson et al. 2013). That’s very helpful if nurses can share their grieving with their colleagues and receive supporting from them. The colleagues can be physicians, workers or even doctors who working in the same field so they can understand and give the most support for nurses in need (Jonas-Simpson et al. 2013). Nurses’ family members also can give support for nurses (Jonas-Simpson et al. 2013). Even though sometimes they can’t understand how nurses really feel, but they are close to the nurses and always there when nurses need. Education is also important for nurses (Jonas-Simpson et al. 2013). Nurses need to learn information about bereavement so nurses can have more knowledge in preparing for the experience of a loss of patients and their families’ grieving
Charalambous, A. (2010). Good communication in end of life care. Journal of Community Nursing, 24(6), 12-14. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Social Attitudes Survey noted that 78% of respondents believe that “the law should require doctors to carry out the instructions of a Living Will” (Park et al, 2007). These decisions become important once patients lose their mental capacity, are unconscious, or unable to communicate” (BMA, 2009). The Mental Capacity Act 2005 defines an “advance decision” as a decision made by a person 18 or over, when he or she has the capacity to do so. The implications of a Living Will, make the case against legalising assisted dying weaker. This is because if a person is legally allowed to set out which treatments they will or will not agree to, and can refuse life sustaining treatments by creating a legal document, then why shouldn’t an individual in extreme pain who is able to make the request at the time be able to ask for assistance in
Hospice focuses on end of life care. When patients are facing terminal illness and have an expected life sentence of days to six months or less of life. Care can take place in different milieu including at home, hospice care center, hospital, and skilled nursing facility. Hospice provides patients and family the tool and resources of how to come to the acceptance of death. The goal of care is to help people who are dying have peace, comfort, and dignity. A team of health care providers and volunteers are responsible for providing care. A primary care doctor and a hospice doctor or medical director will patients care. The patient is allowed to decide who their primary doctor will be while receiving hospice care. It may be a primary care physician or a hospice physician. Nurses provide care at home by vising patient at home or in a hospital setting facility. Nurses are responsible for coordination of the hospice care team. Home health aides provide support for daily and routine care ( dressing, bathing, eating and etc). Spiritual counselors, Chaplains, priests, lay ministers or other spiritual counselors can provide spiritual care and guidance for the entire family. Social workers provide counseling and support. They can also provide referrals to other support systems. Pharmacists provide medication oversight and suggestions regarding the most effective
When you think of home care for a loved one, you want comfort and convenience with quality of life. A misconception of palliative care is that it is equivalent to hospice care, which concentrates on end of life. However, palliative care is now being offered to patients whether it begins early at diagnosis or throughout ongoing treatment. It is no longer limited to medical settings as more health care agencies are now offering it in home care. Think of palliative care as “comfort” care during any stage of illness.
A) Nurses play a special role interacting and building relationships with patients, mediating between patients and doctors, and calming patients amongst a stressful, emotional, and even chaotic atmosphere. When patients hear bad news, nurses are a source of comfort and support with words of encouragement and heart-warming smiles. Genuine compassion, emotional strength, and mental stability are required in order to support and protect a patient’s well being. Furthermore, nurses must primarily acknowledge the patient as an individual rather than a person with an illness and present themselves as a trustworthy companion rather than an obligatory caregiver. Nursing has many attractive qualities because they play various, but crucial, roles outside
Palliative care is medical or comfort care that reduces the severity of a disease or slows its progress, but does not provide a cure (Dreeben, 2007). Different people have different needs when life is ending. Working with the incurable may sound depressing but death is a certainty and what we do each day for these patients as physical therapist assistants, matters. Providing care effectively and appropriately has a huge impact on the patient, therefore acquiring the ability to comfort and care for a patient at such a critical stage in life, is an amazin...
The field of nursing provides one the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. Nurses interact directly with patients at times of hardship, vulnerability, and loss. The nursing profession has been around for decades. Due to the contribution from historical leaders in nursing, the nurse’s role has progressed over time. Although the roles of nurses have evolved throughout the years, one thing has remained the same: the purpose in giving the best patient care.
My earliest experiences of observing nursing in action occurred during my last two years of high school. My father was diagnosed with cancer during the spring of my junior year and died right before my senior year. During that short time I watched as the nurses cared for him and I could see compassion and empathy in the way they looked at him. It never occurred to me until after I had raised my children that I wanted to be able to help people in the same way those nurses helped my dad. But now when I tell people that I want to be an oncology nurse, people often respond by saying that they would never choose that type of nursing. They say that they could not stand to watch their patients die so frequently. Their reactions, along with this course in death and dying, have made me question how I might be able to bear the challenges of nursing in an area where death of my patients may be common. I believe that oncology will be a positive specialty to work in because of the consistent advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer. Furthermore, I believe that William Worden’s four tasks of mourning as presented in our text book is a good framework for the oncology nurse to use in order to cope with the repeated losses inherent in this type of nursing (Leming and Dickinson, 2011).
Palliative care is essentially end of life care. It specializes in keeping the patient as comfortable
Compare hospice to palliative care and describe the similarities and differences of the two in terms of community health nursing. (12 pts) Palliative care is used when someone is diagnosed with a serious or chronic illness and they are having side effects from the illness and are nearly at the end of their life, they will need to be referred to palliative care to help them in relieving and preventing the suffering. Palliative care is not limited it can be conservative or aggressive. Hospice care is when a person has a terminal illness that is advanced and there is no more cure or treatment, and are going to die in six months or less they then refer to Hospice care to attend their emotional and spiritual needs and helps to relieve their suffering and improve their quality of life. (12 pts).
Hospice should be viewed as specialty and is focused on palliative care principles. Medical care is geared towards symptoms management, not curative treatment (Homecare and Hospices Resources, 2000). It is focus on living rather than dying, and a way to make the end of life as comfortable and meaningful as possible. The purpose of hospice is not to limit what health care is available to the patient, but enhance their life by controlling symptoms and providing support for everyone involved.
Ruth presented aspects of “An education model for explaining hospice services” (Welk, 1991). She discussed the four dimensions of support for the patient and family within hospice care, which are physical, emotional/psychological, social, and spiritual and gave examples of how the various dimensions of support could occur. She explained the purpose of hospice is to allow the patient to live as full as possible and comfortably until the end of life. She explained hospices services takes the “…conflict out of social situations, helps to subside the fear emotionally, attempts to remove as much pain physically and addresses decreasing despair spiritually thus easing the suffering” (Welk, 1991, p. 16) of the patient and
“Persons intentionally choose to become nurses to help patients meet their health needs,” even when the patient is actively dying. (Wu & Volker, 2012) Hospice nursing and palliative care nursing are both considered end of life care. However, hospice nursing is typically given to patients with a terminal illness and who have less than six months to live. Palliative care is typically given to patients with a life threatening illness, and is used to increase the patient’s quality of life. Choosing a nursing career in either hospice or palliative care can be extremely difficult, but will provide an opportunity for great personal growth. At times, an end-of-life caregiver may feel responsible for their patient’s death, or they may feel isolated due to a lack of support. Nurses new to this field should “feel that their unit acknowledges death as a difficult event and that discussion of death is acceptable in the workplace.” (Lewis, 2013) The most rewarding, and also most difficult, part of being a hospice or palliative care nurse is the ability to be a part of your patient and their family’s life, including their loss, grief, and death. (Wu & Volker, 2012)
Hospice is a concept of caring borrowed from medieval times, where travelers, pilgrims and the sick, wounded or dying could find rest and comfort. The contemporary hospice offers a program of care to patients and families facing a life threatening illness encompassing medical, nursing, spiritual, and psychological care. It is more than a medical alternative, it is an attitude toward death and the process of dying. Terminal disease is managed so patients can live comfortably until they die. The hospice program in the United States has evolved in part as an attempt to compensate for the inadequacies of the present medical system, particularly in caring for patients with a terminal illness. Hospice care has grown from an alternative health care movement to an established component of the American health care system. The modern hospice movement began in 1967 when Cicely Saunders opened St. Christopher's Hospice in London England. In the late 1960’s, several Yale University students invited Dr. Saunders to come speak at Yale. These students were inspired to create a similar service in the United States. They opened the Connecticut Hospice in Branford, Connecticut and pioneered the hospice movement in the United States. This became the nation’s first specially designed hospice care center. What is Hospice care? In an attempt to answer, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement in 1990 about the philosophy and techniques of hospice care.
We as health care professionals need to work side by side with the families to provide the best care and decisions that are right by our patients. We have to be mindful of the cause and effect our course of treatment depicts for our patients. No individual wants to live in pain or misery, we all want to be healthy and happy and are willing to go great lengths to achieve this goal. Death is the final stage of life, but as we live and get older we start to prepare for death as to not fear death but accept it. Health care professionals may benefit from the opportunity to acknowledge, normalize and integrate death and dying into the continuum of life, both for themselves as well as their patients. (Sinclair, 2011) With advancements in technology and medicine we are living longer and fuller lives, and given time quality of life will only continue to improve.