Importance of Palliative Care for Young Adults

Describe  about the Review of Palliative Care for Children and Young?

Palliative care is a current approach. It upgrades the standard of life of the patients and the family members of the patients for severe and critical illness. Palliative Care was formed in the year of 1991 in Australia. Generally, death is viewed in society with stress and pain. Especially palliative care of young adult is significant. The main challenge of nurse is to take care for a dying young adult. Here it can be said that the main objective or aim of the palliative care is to help the patients in a critical condition or severe illness. Here ‘Hope’ can be referred as the feeling of desire and expectation for a certain thing to happen. Hope plays a significant role for the recovery of the families of the dying patient. Sometimes hope may change the illness of the patient. The hope of a family of palliative care patient should not be discouraged by nurses. There is a need for honest and open communication. It is important to discuss with the patient and the family of patient about the diagnosis. They should face the real situation (‘A Review of Palliative Care for Children and Young Adults in the Thames Valley’, 2015).

The age group of young adult is 15- 29 years. Palliative care is for young adult is closely related to the adults. It is very important to give assistance to the family of a young adult. Pain, stress and symptoms are focused for a young adult palliative care. The quality of life needs to be evaluated for both the family and the young adult. A team of doctor provides the palliative care. The complex in illness is more in young adults than the mature person. The same illness may act differently because of the difference in physiology and anatomy and they also act differently. There are many challenges for young adult palliative care. It is very important to provide the required care and support to the patients by the family members in terms of palliative care (‘Giving hope to families in palliative care and implications for practice’, 2015). The family of a young adult palliative care patient plays a vital and main role for improvement of the condition of patient. The experts’ advice should be followed by the family members. The family should also have the knowledge about the illness and their symptoms. The family of a palliative care patient should be able to manage the immediate condition if any abnormality is observed in the patient. It is clear that the patients have not much time to live but it is not informed to the patient (MaineGeneral Health, 2015).  

The relief from pain is provided by the palliative care. The spiritual and psychological aspects of patient care are integrated by the palliative care. A support system is given by the palliative care which offers a patient live as actively as possible. The palliative care has a positive influence in the course of illness. The palliative care should improve the quality of life of the patients (Robin B Rome, 2011). A team approach is used for the ill patient and their family. HIV/ AIDS patients are suffering from extreme pain. They need to give extra care because of variety of symptoms like cough, pain, weakness, fever, diarrhea, shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea and confusion. Palliative care can improve the activity of daily life of patients and the family of patients. Health workers are responsible for the palliative care. Proper training is given to the family member of patients. In palliative care it is necessary to train family members when the patients stay at home. Proper psychological and physical supports are given to the palliative care patients. The patient should feel comfortable with their friends, family member and communities. It is the responsibility to the health workers to give support to the family of a patient even after the death of the patient. Sometimes counseling of family is needed for a better life of them (Who.int, 2015).

Challenges for Young Adult Palliative Care

Communication is very important in career of nursing. Nurse can transfer the information by communicating with the people. Nursing is the profession where the communication is more important because they are needed to communicate with the patient, the family of patient, the co-workers of nurses, supervisors, and many others. Nurse patient interaction plays an important role for a palliative care patient. The main factor that may influence in the career of the nurse is the skill and potential of communication with the patients. There are three major components for the successful communications. Those are receiver, sender and a message. The capacity for passing the message in a short period of time is very essential for a nurse. There are some factors to do this successfully. The communication skill of the nurse should high-quality because the families of patients are depended on them. Failure in communication can start negative outcomes. The effective nursing care is the major role for the nurse because a patient and the family of the patient both are totally dependent on the care of nurse. The trust should provide to the palliative care patient and their family with a good communication. The promises are given to the patient and their family by the nurses should follow (‘THE ROLE OF THE NURSE IN PALLIATIVE CARE’, 2015). The proper conversation is needed during the delivery of a report to the family of patient and any kind of unnecessary conversation is strongly illegal. The palliative care patient and family of patient should not be ignored. For this reason the timing and the process of communication between the nurse and the palliative care patient is very crucial. There are few factors which are influencing the faith of the family of the palliative care patient. Those are the eye contact of the nurse, body language of the nurse and tone of voice of the nurse. The family of patient does not remember the name of the nurse but they remember the activity of the nurse during the crucial time of the patient. So nurse should be able to handle the difficult situations of the patient with a quality – communication with the family of the palliative care patients. Different type of patients has different type of language, culture, rules and norms (Ucsf.edu, 2015). The nurse should be able to communicate with different type of patients. One of the most important skills in nurse is listening. Active listening is one of the communication skills which are used in palliative care. Active listening needs the listener to comment what they hear to the speaker. Because of the health issues active listening plays major role in nursing profession. Attending skill is an essential part of communication which means the nurse gives her full attention in the palliative care patient. There are some features of attending skills. The nurse should have open posture and availability to the palliative care patient. The nurse should involve with the palliative care patient. Eye contact between nurse and patient is important. Always the nurse should try to be relaxed with their patient (Wilkes L, 2015). The key ingredients to therapeutic communication in nursing are sharing hope, active listening, sharing observations, sharing empathy, focusing, clarifying, silence, providing information, sharing feeling, sharing humor, confrontation, self- disclosure, summarizing, paraphrasing and asking relevant questions. Positive body language of nurse is very important for the palliative care patients because the patient and family of a patient both are dependent on the successful communication between them. Sometimes silence of a nurse is more important for a patient and their family (‘Standards for Providing Quality Palliative Care for all Australians’, 2015). The patient party only wants the presence of nurse. There is no need to talk all-time. Specifically in case of critical patient silence is more essential. At that time presence is more important to the patient and their family (‘Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Palliative Care’, 2015).

Conclusion:

Palliative care is a proposal that enhances the standard of life of patients and the family of patients. The proposals of palliative care are prevention and reduction of life- threatening illness. Palliative Care Australia is a top national institution which is symbolizing the hope and charm of all who share the model of standard care at the end of life for all (Clark & Fasciano, 2013). Palliative Care Australia was formed to promote, encourage and influence the delivery of standard care at the end of life for all. Palliative care is a strategy where it is known to all that the illness of the patient cannot be cured. Palliative care makes sure that the care and comfort are provided to the family of a palliative care patient (Howk & Wasilewski-Masker, 2011). The vision of the palliative care is the standard care at the end of life for all. Palliative care can improve the quality of life for the patient and the family of a patient. The palliative care gives support to the dying patients and their family for their recovery.

References:

A Review of Palliative Care for Children and Young Adults in the Thames Valley. (2015). Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://file:///C:/Users/computer/Downloads/review_of_palliative_care_2011___helen___douglas_house.pdf

Clark, J., & Fasciano, K. (2013). Young Adult Palliative Care: Challenges and Opportunities. American Journal Of Hospice And Palliative Medicine, 32(1), 101-111. doi:10.1177/1049909113510394

Giving hope to families in palliative care and implications for practice. (2015). Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://file:///C:/Users/computer/Downloads/225860_2098634613_Article-SDLA2-Communicationand%20(2).pdf

Howk, T., & Wasilewski-Masker, K. (2011). Palliative Care for Adolescents and Young Adults: A Pediatric Perspective. Journal Of Adolescent And Young Adult Oncology, 1(1), 11-12. doi:10.1089/jayao.2011.1503

MaineGeneral Health,. (2015). Importance of Palliative Care – – MaineGeneral Health, Augusta, ME. Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.mainegeneral.org/Pages/Care-and-Services-A-Z/Palliative-Care-and-Pain-Management/Importance-of-Palliative-Care.aspx

Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Palliative Care. (2015). Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.sah.org.au/assets/files/PDFs/Nurse%20Practioners/EDWARDS%20Nurse%20Practitioner%20Scope%20of%20Practice%20%20v12%281%29.pdf

Robin B Rome, C. (2011). The Role of Palliative Care at the End of Life. The Ochsner Journal, 11(4), 348. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3241069/

Standards for Providing Quality Palliative Care for all Australians. (2015). Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.palliativecare.org.au/Portals/46/Standards%20for%20providing%20quality%20palliative%20care%20for%20all%20Australians.pdf

THE ROLE OF THE NURSE IN PALLIATIVE CARE. (2015). Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.rcna.org.au/WCM/Images/RCNA_website/Files%20for%20upload%20and%20link/policy/documentation/review/role_of_the_nurse_in_palliative_care.pdf

Ucsf.edu,. (2015). As Palliative Care’s Importance Grows, UCSF Nursing Expands Training | UC San Francisco. Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/12/121586/palliative-care%E2%80%99s-importance-grows-ucsf-nursing-expands-training

Who.int,. (2015). Palliative Care. Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.who.int/hiv/topics/palliative/PalliativeCare/en/

Wilkes L, e. (2015). The future of palliative care nursing research in Australia. – PubMed – NCBI.Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 17 March 2015, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10839039