As your senior’s chronic kidney disease worsens, she may be looking for additional care options. One that you may want to consider is called palliative care services. This type of care can dramatically improve how your senior feels about her illness, her care, and what other options are available to her. It’s an important option that she really should consider.
What Is Palliative Care?
Palliative care is an additional type of care that doesn’t replace the curative treatments that your senior is already engaged with on a regular basis. While your senior’s doctors and specialists are focused on trying to help your senior to heal as much as possible, palliative care focuses on a holistic type of care that also is concerned with how your senior is feeling. This is not a type of care that replaces your senior’s existing care and treatments. Palliative care works hand in hand with your senior’s existing therapies.
Managing Symptoms and Side Effects
CKD has a lot of symptoms, including pain, and there are also side effects to treatments and medications. Your senior’s palliative care team works in conjunction with her other doctors to find a way to manage those symptoms effectively. Those treatments may involve lifestyle changes or her palliative care providers may advocate for medication changes. The goal is to give your senior the best quality of life possible.
Communicating with Doctors and Specialists
Understanding all of the different aspects of chronic kidney disease can get overwhelming. And sometimes specialists are too busy to really go over what’s happening with your senior and you. Palliative care team members can explain what’s happening, answer all of your questions, and get more information from your senior’s doctors and specialists. This can be an incredible relief for everyone involved.
Help Your Family to Cope and Know What to Expect
Your entire family may have learned a lot about chronic kidney disease as your senior has progressed through this illness, but there are still some situations to come that you might not all be prepared to face. Palliative care can help to decode some of those mysteries for all of you. Also, coping mechanisms aren’t just needed by your senior. It can be difficult for family members to fully cope with what’s happening, too.
Palliative care is an important option that can greatly improve your senior’s experience with chronic kidney disease. It can also help you to feel better prepared as her family caregiver for whatever other challenges come her way.
If you or your aging loved one could benefit from Palliative Care Services in Cope SC, contact the caring staff at Grove Park Hospice, at (803)536-6644.
Providing Hospice & Palliative Care in Orangeburg, Bamberg, & Calhoun Counties
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