Cancer is serious—at any stage of the disease. Having support throughout the diagnosis can make all the difference in your battle. Ardent’s palliative care services can help improve the quality of life as you fight against cancer.
Most often, the main goal of palliative care is to ease a patient into hospice care. It sets them up with a nurse, introduces them to the rest of our team, and keeps them comfortable as they approach their final days. However, when a cancer patient is prepared to fight, here’s how palliative care can help.
1. Additional support throughout your entire diagnosis
Palliative care can begin as soon as a patient is ready and willing to accept care. This additional support can be tailored to whatever you need or feel comfortable with. Sometimes patients and their families will enroll in palliative care just for the extra help if an emergency arises; others elect to have our nurse visit them every week but opt out of any visits from our social worker or spiritual counselor. But you don’t have to wait for a certain point in your disease progression; you can start receiving at-home, personalized care the moment you feel you need it.
2. Less stress around advanced-care planning
Our social workers and spiritual counselors are here to support you emotionally but also alleviate some of the stress around advanced-care planning. While we want your focus to be on fighting and surviving your cancer battle, it’s also important to start considering your options for advanced-care planning. This involves POST (Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment) forms, advance directives, and funeral or memorial arrangements. Because we encourage you to start these conversations early, it’s one less thing to worry about so you can turn your total focus into your diagnosis.
3. Liaison between you and your doctor
Our team is your advocate the whole time you’re receiving palliative care. Since our nurses visit you on a weekly basis, we’re able to relay vital information to your doctor about your symptoms and progression, and give your doctor recommendations about medications or therapies that might be beneficial. We’re able to give your doctor a more thorough understanding of how you’re doing by providing details from a nursing perspective. This means your doctor will be able to more accurately prescribe treatments and help you continue to battle the disease.
4. Spend more time with your family
One of the main benefits of palliative care is that our nurse, as the liaison between you and your doctor, can help keep you out of the hospital. We can notify your doctor if pain or symptoms worsen, saving you from an office visit to explain how you’re feeling. All this means you can spend more time with your family—who are likely your greatest support system through this battle.
5. Peace of mind as you go through treatments
While on palliative care, you’re able to continue the treatment plan laid out by your oncologist and primary care doctor. But when you’re on palliative care, you have a nurse to check in on you at your home once a week, answer any questions you may have, and report back to your doctor if your condition changes. Our spiritual counselor and social worker are also able to provide emotional and spiritual support. We hope this gives you peace of mind, knowing you have our entire team to support you as you go through your cancer treatments.
Palliative care is constantly changing and evolving. As new guidelines come out, we redesign our team and services to be able to provide the best care to our patients. For more information on how we can help you or a loved one in your fight against cancer, contact us online or call us at 559-408-5945.
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