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What is Palliative Care?
Palliative Care is when a person needs special medical attention due to a prolonged and serious illness. Palliative Care’s main focus is to provide comfort for those suffering from the disease itself and also what the person goes through mentally due to the condition. Sometimes it might extend the support to the patient’s loved ones who are taking care of them.
Palliative Care is tailor-made for each individual according to their needs. Palliative Care may include the following :
- Providing relief from the symptoms of the disease and the effects of the treatment.
- Help in understanding the disease better and the progression of it.
- Providing for spiritual and practical needs.
- Providing emotional support in coping with the diagnosis and the progression of the disease.
- Supporting in decision-making regarding treatment options and aftercare.
- Picking out additional resources to provide the needed support.
Advanced Dementia Symptoms
- Memory loss
- Difficulty in Verbal Communication
- Difficulty to physically move
- Loss in Bladder control
- Behavioral changes
- Mood swings
- Weight loss
- Difficulty in drinking and eating
How does Palliative Care Help People with Advanced Dementia?
People who have advanced dementia slowly tend to forget about hunger and thirst and often need help with eating. When they reach this stage, the family has to make a difficult decision on whether to use artificial feeding. But doing this has no guarantee of extending a person’s life expectancy.
In fact feeding through a tube only increases the chance of infection and pneumonia. Palliative care takers would help you to make the decision both in emotional and practical terms. And later would provide help with the taken decision.
Dementia is not easy to diagnose as the family would often misjudge it to be the side effects of old age. This happens mainly because it’s a slowly progressing disease.
The caregiver in the family would take on the workload of two people over the course of time without realizing it. This will, in turn, lead to caregiver burnout, which can be disastrous for both the patient and the caregiver. They often end up getting sick themselves.
This is where palliative care comes into play. The team will have deep and thorough conversations on the needs and decisions to be taken. They will also see to it that the person gets a good nursing facility if home care is no longer an option.
The palliative care team will also help in sorting out the health care system, including the hospital bills and insurance.
After a certain point of time, when the disease progresses to its peak, the person with dementia cannot ask for their wants and needs. The palliative care team will have their back in terms of emotional, psychological, physiological and even spiritual needs.
Conclusion
Palliative care is a good option to consider when a loved one has advanced dementia. Palliative care helps with the patient’s day-to-day needs, be they emotional or physical. Psychological or physiological. It not only helps the patient but also the caretaker in the family. It helps with making difficult decisions with complete knowledge and weightage of the outcome.
FAQs
1. What is palliative care?
Palliative Care is when a person needs special medical attention due to a prolonged and serious illness. Palliative Care’s main focus is to provide comfort for those suffering from the disease itself and also what the person goes through mentally due to the condition.
2. Who takes care of the end-of-life care for patients with advanced dementia?
The decision-making in end-of-life care for patients with advanced dementia is taken care of by a loved one if the person affected by advanced dementia is not in the state to make decisions. It would be easier if the person had already chosen someone as the lasting power of attorney.
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