Palliative care is a medical field that aims to help patients who cannot fully recover due to their current illness or who need support at the end of life. It is also known as ’supportive care'. It is a form of care focused on relieving the patient's suffering and improving the quality of life.
Formerly called ’There is nothing we can do for your patient, take him home', the focus is on reducing the pain and other problems of patients. At the end of life, palliative care comes into play in cases where treatments aimed at improving the disease do not achieve their goal, and it aims to improve the quality of life by addressing the patient's complaints.
The aim is to add years to the life of the patients, not years to the life of the patients. Every patient has the right to spend the last days of his life in a certain quality and peace of mind. Therefore, palliative care is considered among the human dec values today. Communication with the patient and his relatives, acceptance of death as a natural process, respect for the patient's decisions and choices, providing support to the family during the grieving process are among the principles of palliative care.
WHO NEEDS PALLIATIVE CARE?
Patients with primary progressive neurological disease such as Alzheimer's disease patients requiring palliative care , cancer patients that do not respond to treatment in patients with severe organ failure, nutrition, physical and neurological/psychological reasons are corrupted due to bed sores in bedridden patients, patients who require nutritional support opened.
WHAT TREATMENTS AND SUPPORTS DOES PALLIATIVE CARE COVER?
Controlling and alleviating pain and other symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, weight loss, insomnia, depression
Elimination of undesirable side effects that occur in the patient
Providing nutritional support
Relaxation of breathing
Meeting the psycho-social and spiritual needs of the patient and his family
Education of the patient and his family
End-stage care of the patient