PALLIATIVE CARE

Palliative Care: “Chemotherapy”

Introduction

Palliative care is evolved as an alternative to the increasingly high technologic death, i.e. one in which a dying person's preferences and personal values are usually not respected and the patients die in isolation as well as pain. This hospice was designed formally for the patients dying from cancer. The main aim of the palliative care is to offer the symptom and pain management, spiritual and emotional support for the family members and the patients. The term palliative care is considered to be one of an interdisciplinary medical specialty which focuses on relieving and prevention of unnecessary suffering by supporting an excellent quality of life for the family members of the patients and the patients themselves facing life threatening illness (Cherney, Catane, Kosmidis, & Members of the ESMO Palliative Care Working Group, 2002). The patients in their last phase of a life threatening and serious illness for instance cancer is thought to develop potential psychosocial or physical symptoms in the months or weeks former to death (Bruera, 1996). For any palliative care the primary tenets is basically the symptom management hence establishing the care goals which assist in keeping the patients preferences and values, along with sustaining consistent communication between the patients and individuals involved in care as well as their practical, spiritual, and psychosocial support for the families and patients, and coordination across sites of care.

In this assignment chemotherapy palliative care will be focused. The term chemotherapy is sometimes referred to as "chemo", which is the treatment of cancer with anticancer drugs (Gullatte, Gaddis, 2004). The main principle of the chemotherapy is to kill the cells of cancer. It is employed for treating the cancer patients as their cancerous cells extends from the body away from where it was metastasized initially. Thus, these cancerous cells are destroyed in the body by chemotherapy as it kills the cells that have broken off from the main tumour and travels into the blood and lymphatic system to other body parts. The drugs of chemotherapy are responsible to disrupt the cancer cell division interfering with the capability of the cell to multiply and grow hence leading to cell death. As a side effect the utilization of the agents of chemotherapy tends to cause bone marrow suppression which further leads to the susceptibility of infections (Gullatte, Gaddis, 2004).

Discussion

The bereavement, spiritual, psychosocial support is thought to be the chief element of the palliative care. There are numerous programs which utilize an interdisciplinary team for the care of the psychosocial issues of the cancer patients. In particular, the patients undergoing depression and psychological distress are prevalent in patients having advanced illness. The emotional and psychological wellbeing of the family members and the patients includes self esteem concerns, insights into the illness adaptations along with its consequences, relationships, social functioning and communications. Advanced cancer in the patient undergoing chemotherapy impacts the quality of life of the cancer patients their caregivers and families in numerous ways:

Physical and psychological Issues

Individuals with advanced cancer experience a range ...