Palliative Care for Young Adults - Essay Example

Name Course Lecturer Date Palliative Care for a Young Adult Palliative care is a special medical care provided to individuals with serious diseases. Palliative care focuses on giving patients relief from the symptoms, pain as well as stress that comes along with serious diseases, whatsoever the diagnosis. The aim of palliative care is to develop value of life for both the patient and the family. The care is offered by a group of doctors, nurses as well as other experts who toil together with other doctors of the patient in order to give additional level of support. Palliative care is suitable at any age such as children young adults and older adults and at any point of serious disease and can be given alongside with restorative treatment (Get Palliative care, 2014). Providing palliative care to young adults with life threatening illnesses is very important, this is because it increases life expectancy, in other words it prolongs the life of a young adult suffering from life threatening disease. According to Palliative Doctors (2014), palliative care involves controlling of the symptoms as well as relieving the suffering of the patients. This is done by diagnosing the grievance and giving suitable therapy in the change between health and death. In palliative care, symptom control entails presenting grievances, undesirable consequences of treatment as well as the disease recurrent. The care lengthens life where necessary without prolonging the dying process. The palliative care is always against euthanasia as an option for therapeutic and supports life until death. The care is always provided when curative treatment is no longer suitable for the patient. This means that the stress of interference changes from therapy to palliation and at this point, console measures presume greater importance. Touch is presumed to be a prevailing way of helping communication and improving psychological and physical calm. Palliative care assists the young adult in achieving quality of life. The palliative specialists gives the treatment options in order for the patient to make conversant decisions on how to deal with disease as well as signs and live the life. In addition, palliative experts also offer emotional and divine support and funds. This means that the specialists are concerned about the patient not just the disease. Palliative care also helps the young adult in accessing the community services and getting affordable health care. If the patient is at home, palliative care helps the patient in getting assistance at home. It also ensures that the young adult enjoys a safe surrounding at home and also establishes the preferences of the patient’s quality of life and how these preferences should be obtained. Apart from making known the preferences of the patient, palliative care specialists gives the family of a young adult peace of mind. The family understands that the care of their relative is being taken into consideration and shall reflect the patient’s values as well as decisions. The specialists assist the family and the patient in discussing and planning for the unpredicted (Palliative Doctors, 2014). Palliative care also includes end of life care which integrates management of ecstasy, existential suffering, and discussion with the family about the place of death as well as supporting the family of the patient. It provides the patient with a mould of dying with decorum. This model includes dying in the presence of individuals who understands how to drop the specialists’ responsibility mask as well as connect to others easily and richly as a person. This ability to provide the best palliative care to young adults at the end of their life is very important since it earns the specialists trust and respect of all patients (Wein et all, 2010). Palliative care supports the family in bereavement. It is the role of palliative care specialists to assist the bereaved family to cope with the death of one of their own. Since death does not come all of a sudden in most cases, specialists should help both the family and the patient to complete some tasks (Get Palliative care, 2014). By doing so, they agree to a peaceful death such as giving forgiveness, getting a chance to be forgiven. It also gives a chance to the patient to recognize regrets, finding conclusion in professional, community affiliations as well as saying goodbye to relatives and friends. A palliative approach is an advance that is connected to palliative care and is used by prime care services as well as practitioners as Himelstein et all (2004) explains. The approach is meant to develop the quality of life for individuals with a life threatening diseases, their nurses and family. This approach integrates a concern for the holistic requirements of both the young adult and the nurse reflected in evaluation. The approach also integrates the prime treatment of pain as well as in the provision of psychological, physical, social and spiritual care. Appliance of the palliative approach to the care of a young adult patient is not deferred until the end points of their diseases. Instead, the nurses in palliative care using palliative approach gives focus on a vigorous comfort-focused care. Nursing in palliative care also focuses on positive approach to minimize distress as well as support understanding of loss and demise in the wider society (Richardson, 2002). The fundamental philosophy of a palliative approach in nursing is the observation that loss, failing and passing away are all connected components of life. In this case, nurses are regarded as primary care givers in palliative approach since they have a prime or initial contact affiliation with the young adult patient with a life threatening disease. They ensure a suitable initiation or progression programme is in position. Palliative care nursing assess the results of care and makes changes apposite to the ever-changing clinical conditions. Palliative care nurses makes the young adult patient understand the palliative care situations as well as the outcome of its progressive scenery and prepare ahead while trying hard to work with the available resources to support a good quality of life (Himelstein, 2004). Nurses in palliative care should always facilitate and manage interactions with the young adult patient and their relatives, considering the age and capability of the patient. Nursing in this care also involves evaluation, preparation , contribution to execute evaluate as well as document the care provided to the patient with palliative care requirements who have numerous conversation problems or matters. Nurses in should manage all the barriers to successful communication. For instance they should help the patient to converse panic and nervousness of imminent treatment and likelihood of death. This can be done by abridging substance of information by use of whatever communicating device that is required such as written, verbal and communication aid. Palliative care nursing involves supporting young adult patient with life threatening illness and their families throughout the time of uncertainty, applying their understanding and conversing skills to the patient and family. It also entails discussion of treatment and options of care in a suitable way and at an apposite cognitive point. This involves communicating with both the family and the patient on deeper point such as discussion of emotional, psychological or spiritual matters. Palliative nursing using palliative approach also modifies the substance, composition and provides the mode of communication in order to meet up the requirements of a young adult patient and their relatives. This content includes the making decision on the kind of information or advice to offer or not to. It is the duty and responsibility of a palliative care nurses to deliver entrusted nursing care, in the described guidelines as well as procedures following the prescribed care plan. The nurses gather reliable information that educates nursing care and it plays part to transformations in the symptom management of young adult patient. Palliative care being specialized medical care that is provided to the individuals with life threatening illness, is meant to relief the patients symptoms, pain as well as stress. As stated above, palliative care increases the life expectancy of a young adult patient, assists the patient in achieving the quality of life, assists and supports the bereaved family. Palliative approach using palliative nursing care develops the quality of life of a person with life threatening disease. Nurses in palliative care facilitate and manages the change that comes along with the treatment. It is the duty of a nurse to provide a communication device to the patient. They should manage all the barriers to communication, particularly where the patient is not in a position to communicate. References Himelstein, B., Hilden, J., Boldt, M., & Weissman, D. (2004). Pediatric palliative care. Liverpool: Macmillan publishers. New England Journal of Medicine, 350(17), 1752-1762. Richardson, J. (2002). Health promotion in palliative care: the patients' perception of therapeutic interaction with the palliative nurse in the primary care setting. Canberra: Pearson Publishers Journal of advanced nursing, 40(4), 432-440. Get Palliative care. (2014, March Thursday). Get palliative care. Retrieved from http://www.getpalliativecare.org/whatis/ Palliative Doctors, P. (2014, March Thursday). palliative Doctors. Retrieved from http://www.palliativedoctors.org/benefits/index.html Wein,S., Pery, S., Zer, A. (2010). Role of Palliative Care in Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology. Petach Tikvah: Israel Department of Medical Oncology,. Read More