What One Should Know About Palliative Care In Tulsa

By Richard Patterson


Palliative services are an integral part of the overall management of patients with chronic conditions. It is given to improve the life of persons that have been diagnosed with diseases without a known cure. The idea of this kind of treatment is to shift the focus from the illness to the whole individual. Patients wishing to receive palliative care in Tulsa need to understand a number of things in this kind of disease treatment.

Cure is usually out of the picture so the rest of the treatment is directed at preventing and managing the side effects of the primary illness. The side effects may be emotional, physical, spiritual, spiritual or social. Palliative care can be provided at home or in the hospital depending on the nature of the illness. Patients and their relatives are also at liberty in deciding where they would wish to receive the care.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and often requires palliative care especially if metastases have occurred. Although some forms of the condition can be treated, a majority of them cannot and are considered terminal. Persons that have a diagnosis of terminal cancer have a right to dignified living even as they near their end of life. Severe sepsis, liver and renal failure and end stage HIV/AIDS may also require palliation.

Palliative services require considerable team effort. The multidisciplinary team will have a number of various specialists with training in their specific areas. They have to work together to achieve the same objective which is to meet the various needs of the patient. The number and type of specialists needed is determined by the type of illness being treated. For instance in case of sepsis, an infectious disease specialist may be needed and for cancers, an oncologist would be of great help.

Emotional needs are also quite many and important. They may include anxiety, psychological stress and depression. The severity greatly varies from one person to the other and so the manner in which they can be dealt with is also greatly individualized. The treatment for these emotional problems needs to be initiated as soon as possible and should be continued for the entire duration of the illness. Psychotherapy and the use of drugs are the two common ways of treatment used.

Emotional needs may include depression and anxiety. These tend to vary from one person to another and the way to deal with them is largely individualized. It is important that treatment for these emotional problems be initiated as soon as possible and preferably be continued to the very end. Treatment may include psychological therapies as well as medication.

There is a need to clearly distinguish between palliation and a related condition, hospice care. The former is usually initiated once a diagnosis of a chronic illness is made. It can be started at any point along the continuum of care. Hospice care, on the other hand, comes at the very end. It is started in patients in whom the disease identified has no known cure.

Palliation is related to but is not the same as hospice services. Palliation is simply supportive treatment that a patient is accorded right from the time a diagnosis is made. Hospice services, on the other hand, are given principally as end of life care when cure for a particular disease is considered impossible. Both of them are, therefore, found on the continuum of care for chronic conditions.




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