Palliative Care at Home for Cancer Patients

Caring for someone with cancer requires a great deal of knowledge, tact and empathy. It is a profession that few can cope with, and those who do are should be held in high esteem. If your senior loved one is suffering from cancer, they need help like never before. And today we’re going to tell you all you need to know about palliative care at home for cancer patients and about hospice care!

What is palliative care?

The idea and practice of hospice care for dying patients is as old as medicine itself. Palliative care has been recognised as a separate medical speciality since the mid 1980s. Palliative medicine is a medical component of the whole defined as palliative care. The adjective ‘palliative’ is derived from the Latin word “paliatus” and in a medical context means: “concealing, alleviating the unpleasant signs of illness”. It can also be combined with the English verb “palliate” — to soothe, relieve, alleviate. The idea and the name were taken up after the Second World War by the English nurse Cicely Saunders, who created the first modern St Christopher’s hospice in London. Since then, the hospice movement has begun to develop dynamically.

Palliative treatment is a medical procedure applicable to many types of cancer. It does not aim to cure or stop the disease process. Palliative care at home for cancer patients improves the patient’s quality of life by alleviating the discomfort caused by the cancer and extending the patient’s remaining time.

What does cancer care include?

Cancer care varies somewhat depending on the stage of the disease and the general physical condition of the person affected. However, it is always comprehensive and includes not only help with everyday tasks, but also a medical component. Palliative care at home for cancer patients may include assistance with medication, minor medical support such as bowel, stoma and catheter care, and day-to-day hygiene and grooming assistance.

End-of-life care at home can also include support after chemotherapy, radiotherapy or hormone therapy, but at the same time running errands, such as picking up prescriptions or doing grocery shopping, which the sufferer lacks the strength to do. Those providing palliative care at home for cancer patients often also offer to cook meals and keep the home clean. But the greatest benefit of care for cancer patients at home is the companionship and support in the comfort of a familiar place for the senior.

Palliative care plan

A care plan is essential to ensure adequate end-of-life care at home. In defining a palliative care and treatment plan, the physician and the palliative care team should take into account the consciously expressed preferences and wishes of the patient, followed by those of the patient’s family. Management should not aim at sustaining a fading life at any cost, at the expense of quality of life. Instead, it is always necessary to intervene immediately to bring relief to patients with somatic complaints and psychological and spiritual suffering. It is necessary to take into account the wishes of the patient to communicate and provide reliable information about the diagnosis, prognosis and to establish with the patient the person entitled to further care and treatment, especially in the terminal phase.

Home care for cancer patients UK – how to find a reliable palliative care at home for cancer patients?

Finding the right person to provide palliative care at home for cancer patients in your life is no easy task. You don’t just type “home care for cancer patients uk” into Google and choose the first search. It’s a much more difficult process that you need to approach responsibly. After all, it is a very responsible job that can make or break the last days of a patient’s life. Therefore, before you make a decision and select a person for the position, carefully scan their previous experience, ask for references from previous clients and review reviews of both the individual and the employment agency as a whole. Reliable companies such as VeritasCare interview candidates thoroughly, offer on the job training and always have references from previous contracts. And once you’ve got that down, invite a few people over for a day or a trial hour to see how they treat the client and whether their temperament suits the sufferer.