Palliative Care at Home

 is a special area of nursing that requires specialized skills and training. It is a type of nursing that helps patients feel more comfortable during a difficult and painful illness process. Palliative home care also takes place while you or your loved one continue to receive other treatments for the disease.

Our palliative home care nurses provide total, comprehensive care for patients struggling with progressive, painful, incurable illnesses. This includes providing care for the whole patient and his or her physical, social, psychological and even spiritual needs of the patient, being sensitive to the religious and cultural needs of the patients and their families during incredibly difficult times.

Palliative Home Care to Relieve Suffering

One of the central objectives of palliative care at home is to relieve suffering and control the symptoms so patients have a better quality of life. This includes relieving symptoms such as:

• Intense pain
• Difficulty breathing
• Nausea
• Digestive problems
• Difficulty sleeping
• Other distressing symptoms

Palliative home care is available to patients regardless of whether their disease process is considered terminal or incurable or not. It can be given while the patient is still pursuing other treatment opportunities. The essential thing to remember about palliative care is that it should enable to patient to be more comfortable and have a better quality of life during the treatment of the disease. Palliative home care treatments are coordinated with your doctors.

Palliative Home Care Boosts Quality of Life

This form of care can provide great comfort to patients and their families during a difficult time. But beyond that, our home care palliative nurses also seek to help our patients to improve the quality of their lives. If lost functions can be restored, our nurses will assist and support patients in those endeavors. Our palliative home care team works closely with the patient and the patient’s family to coordinate and empower patients to spend quality time together, easing transitions between hospital and home care, and looking out for the possible future needs of the patient.

Also, serious, painful and life-threatening illnesses can take a huge mental and emotional toll on patients and their families. This is one area where palliative home care can provide comfort, understanding and relief as well. In addition to skilled nurses who can assist with symptom relief and physical comfort, our palliative care team also includes counselors, social workers, chaplains and companions who are there to listen and provide the psychosocial support patients and families need as they work through an immensely difficult process.

When Is Palliative Home Care Necessary?

If you or a loved one are:

• Experiencing out-of-control pain from a disease or treatment process
• Suffering severe mental and emotional pain due to the disease process
• You need help to understand what is going on during treatment

Palliative care is not used in place of treatments already being done by your primary care physician or specialists; it is home care that supports what your doctors are doing and it can be enormously helpful in improving your quality of life.

If you or a loved one are struggling through a disease process or treatments to manage a difficult and painful disease, please contact At Home Personal Care today at (703) 330-2323 to find out more about how palliative home care can provide relief, comfort and help during this difficult time.