May is ALS Awareness Month, and if you or someone you love has ALS, exploring other types of care could foster independence and improve quality of life. Palliative care services may be a good option. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly shortened to ALS, is a progressive disease of the nervous system that causes loss of muscle control over time.
Assess Needs and Set Some Goals with Palliative Care Assistance
Whether you’ve just been diagnosed with ALS or you’ve been struggling to manage symptoms for a while, having some goals and understanding all of your needs is important to getting the right care. Palliative care providers can help you to work out what your needs are and how you can best meet them. They’ll work with your doctors to help formulate a care plan that addresses what you need it to cover.
Plan Out What Happens Next
Having someone in your corner ensures that you’re not struggling to piece together a plan for what happens next. It’s important with progressive illnesses like ALS to understand what challenges you’re likely to face down the road and start to plan for them. This helps you to make sure that more of your care plan is geared toward what you want and not a reactionary response.
Work on Maintaining Respiratory Function
ALS has a significant impact on the respiratory system. As respiratory muscles get weaker, that makes the process of breathing so much more difficult. Managing symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue, and insomnia helps you to feel less anxious. In turn, that can help you to be better able to get the air that you need. Eventually, you may need noninvasive or invasive ventilation, but being able to successfully and comfortably wait until either is necessary can be important for emotional well-being.
Ensure Nutrition Is Prioritized
Malnutrition is a huge problem for anyone with a chronic health condition, but it can be especially challenging for someone with ALS. Because ALS causes muscle function everywhere in the body to weaken, eating can become incredibly difficult or even impossible. Working to find solutions to difficulties like chewing food, swallowing safely, and getting enough fluids is something that palliative care can help manage.
Put Palliative Care Help in Place to Manage New Symptoms and Issues
As with any progressive illness, the symptoms you experience with ALS are going to change over time. Being able to recognize those new symptoms and find ways to manage them is really crucial. Palliative care providers are able to work closely with your medical team and put the best answers into practice.
Explore Assistive Tools that Might Be Useful
There can be a lot of stigma attached to assistive tools and devices, but there are quite a few that may help you to have a much more comfortable and active life. These same devices can also bolster independence, which also helps with mental health and overall well-being. Learning how to use those devices correctly and safely is key.
Finding the right solutions for you or someone you love who has ALS is vital. Having the care that you need can help you to stay as healthy and as independent as possible for longer than you might expect.
If you or your aging loved one could benefit from Palliative Care Services in Denmark 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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