Knowing someone you love has received a terminal or life-shortening diagnosis is devastating. Family members will surely be dazed, shocked and unsure how to proceed. Early doctors’ appointments and hospital visits may leave you feeling hazy, confused, and overwhelmed.
Once the fog has subsided, immediate considerations may be given to hospice care. While this option has merits, chat with your loved one and ask for their wishes. In a 2017 Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 71% of Americans said that they wanted to pass on at home as opposed to in a hospice, hospital, or senior care home.
With this in mind, seeking the help of specialized live-in care professionals offers a series of benefits for both the individual living with the diagnosis, and their loved ones.
What Is at-Home Professional Palliative Care?
Choosing palliative care at home with a live-in carer allows an individual to stay in familiar and comfortable surroundings.
Depending on the circumstance, care agencies will often recommend a live-in palliative caregiver — someone who is specially trained to work with those living with a life-shortening illness — to tend to Activities of Daily Living (ADLs).
Reputable caregiving agencies will also provide the caregiver and their client with support and supervision from medically trained Registered Nursing Coordinators (RNDs). Care providers may also recommend — and offer — alternative, holistic therapies, such as massage therapy.
This multi-pronged approach ensures that personal, physical and psychological needs are tended to effectively and skillfully — guaranteeing that the individual client’s needs are met comfortably at home.
Here’s how professional care at home can improve the quality of life for palliative patients.
A Familiar Environment Is of Immediate Comfort
Allowing your loved one to stay at home offers undeniable comfort. For many individuals, relocating to a hospice and being uprooted from their house — one in which they may have lived for decades — can be both distressing and confusing. Allowing a person to stay in place immediately reduces these potential stressors.
This is especially true if your loved one is living with dementia — knowing exactly where things are and how things operate will greatly minimize distress.
Professional In-Home Caregivers Can Reduce Emotional Distress
Knowing that a loved one is living with a life-shortening illness is — of course — a distressing experience. For many family members, this will be their first time navigating such a situation.
Professional carers can help individuals manage their emotions. Caregivers offer compassionate care with a deep understanding of how to handle difficult conversations, bouts of anger and frustration, and moments of depression.
Recruiting professional live-in palliative care means that your loved one will receive dedicated one-on-one attention — calming and soothing them as quickly as much as possible. They may also provide comfort to you when you go to visit. Often in large care facilities, team members are overworked, leaving little time to chat or give in-depth feedback as to your loved one’s day — with a live-in care provider, this won’t be the case.
Friends and Family Can Visit Whenever They Like
For some individuals, simply seeing a familiar face will lift their spirits, appease anxieties, and quiet the mind. Unlike in senior care or palliative care facilities that have strict visiting hours, securing live-in care allows you to stop by your loved one’s home whenever you like. Frequent visits are vital not only for your loved one but for you as their family members, too.
Care Agencies Can Partner Clients with Holistic Therapists
In-home care easily and comfortably allows for visits from holistic care providers such as Registered Massage Therapists (RMTs). Reputable care providers will often partner clients with the therapies that are best suited to them — based on feedback from clients, their loved ones, and their caregivers.
Massage Therapy
Massage therapy is incredibly effective for those in palliative care; those with terminal illnesses often experience chronic pain. Massage can alleviate muscle tension and joint pain in the body, and a neck, head and shoulder massage can minimize headaches and migraines. Massage can also reduce feelings of stress, fatigue, and depression.
For those living with dementia, the massage’s human touch can reduce agitation and irritation.
It’s crucial that RMTs who are trained in palliative care and who understand an individual’s medical condition are used in these instances.
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy may also be administered to palliative patients. Physiotherapy can help with chronic pain management; it can also improve strength and flexibility and an individual’s range of motion.
Physiotherapy can be beneficial for dementia clients, as challenges with balance are a symptom for many people living with the illness. Physio also forges a greater connection to an individual and their physical body, allowing them to be more in tune with and acutely aware of themselves.
Allowing these therapies to be administered in-home offers both comfort and flexibility; there’s no need to organize or plan transportation, nor will you need to prepare your loved one for tiring car rides to therapy offices.
In-Home Palliative Caregivers Provide Nutritious Meals
It’s no secret that a healthy and balanced diet is beneficial to all. This remains the same for those receiving palliative care. In senior and palliative care facilities, there’s often a one-size-fits-all approach to meal servings, with minimal menus and paired-back offerings.
In-home caregivers understand health and nutrition; they can adapt menu items and tailor them to their client’s needs while also factoring in their client’s wants.
Professional In-Home Caregivers Offer Companionship
When a loved one receives a life-limiting diagnosis, it’s hard for family members to drop their day-to-day responsibilities — jobs, young children, pets, and household chores. For many, this inability carries heavy guilt. In-home caregivers can greatly assuage such forms of self-reproach while providing your loved one with a compassionate companion.
In-home carers will offer daily mental stimulation and companionship to your loved one. Playing puzzles, listening to music, watching movies, and having a general conversation are just a few ways the carer and client will connect.
In-Home Carers Offer Patient Advocacy
One of the lesser-considered benefits of securing professional live-in care is that caregivers are educated and knowledgeable about different medications and medical terminology. They understand the nuances and intricacies of terminal care. They will be able to relay their observations effectively and succinctly to doctors and nurses and to loved ones who are not able to attend appointments.
Further, they’ll be able to quantify the success of medications, ensuring their client is as comfortable as can be.
Professional Caregivers Can Help with Side Effects
Primary treatments — those offered in hospitals to treat the symptoms of the illness, hoping to minimize pain and extend life — are physically draining. This is especially true for those undergoing chemotherapy. In-home caregivers provide round-the-clock after-care, ensuring that their client is as comfortable as possible during these moments, awarding them the best quality of life.
Live-In Caregivers Allow You to Focus on What Matters
Lastly, recruiting a professional in-home caregiver allows you to focus your energy where it matters the most, on spending quality time with your loved one.
Instead of worrying about making meals, organizing medication, organizing transportation to medical appointments, or sourcing medical tools — like commodes, bath seats and walkers — you can spend your time with your loved one. This act is sure to greatly improve their quality of life.
Hearing a loved one has received a life-shortening diagnosis is devastating. By carefully calculating your response and by recruiting the help of reputable, in-home professionals, you’re maximizing the quality of life for your loved one and alleviating undue stress for yourself.