ADULT HEALTH 2 FINAL EXAM NOTES PALLIATIVE CARE
Focuses on reducing the severity of disease symptoms. Prevent and relieve suffering; Improve quality
of life for patients; Preserve dignity; Demonstrate compassion, respect, and empathy.
Palliative care extends into the period of end-of-life (EOL) care and offers support to patient and
family. Palliative care should be started after a person receives a diagnosis of a life-limiting illness ex:
a client undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer; a client with end stage renal disease undergoing
dialysis; a client who has terminal lung cancer and is utilizing hospice care .
Palliative care has been shown to improve quality of life for those with chronic illness; Decrease the
associated economic costs for health care; and ease caregiver burden for those with chronic or
terminal illness.
Goals of Palliative Care: Regarding dying as a normal process; Provide relief from symptoms,
including pain; Affirm life and neither hasten not postpone death; Support holistic client care and
enhance quality of life; Offer support to clients to live as actively as possible until death; Offer support
to the family during the client’s illness and in their own bereavement.
Palliative care is a multidisciplinary team effort, including physicians, nurses, dietitians, therapy
support, chaplains, social workers, and other healthcare professionals. The client’s family and
caretakers are also included in this process, which is beneficial for both parties.
Palliative care settings include home, long term and acute care, mental health facilities, rehabilitations
centers, prisons.
Most people incorrectly interchange the concept of palliative care and hospice, but hospice is a form
of palliative assistance. The major differences are palliative care allows a person to simultaneously
receive curative and palliative treatment and Hospice is an option when the physician determines a
person has 6 months or less to live and that person or health care proxy decides to forgo curative
treatments.
HOSPICE CARE
Hospice care provides compassion, concern, and support for clients in the last phases of a terminal
disease. The main goals of hospice are to assist the client to live fully as comfortably as possible and
to die pain-free and with dignity. Hospice provides care with emphasis on symptom management,
advance care planning, spiritual care, and family support.
Hospice nurses focus on pain control, and symptom management, spiritual assessment, and
assessment and management of family needs.