Palliative Care for Adolescents and Young Adults- myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about thePalliative Care for Adolescents and Young Adults. Answer: Palliative care is offered to persons who have a terminal illness. It aims at improving the quality of life of the patients. (Australia, 2005). Its role is to offer comprehensive care which puts in to consideration all the facets of human life, i.e., physical, social, emotional and spiritual. It aims at treating symptoms of the four areas of life just mentioned. It may include services such as relieving pain and other symptoms, support for people to meet cultural obligation and links to other services such as home help and financial success. As indicated by Pratt and Wood (2015), palliative care is offered to any individual, regardless of age and gender, who has been diagnosed with a condition that cannot be treated. It could be provided at home, at the hospital, in a hospice or in a residential aged facility (Duckett and Willcox, 2015). Among the health care team involved in offering palliative care, is a nurse. Every nurse has their own personal values and belief that significantly dictate their world view and interaction with patients. Personal beliefs could negatively affect nurse-patient relationship if not monitored. In this essay, holistic palliative care is going to be identified and explained. Additionally, the essay is going to outline some ways of managing personal values and beliefs and explain how personal beliefs affect the interaction between a nurse and the patient. Holistic palliative care focuses on wholesome care rather than just physical care. According to World Health Organization (2014), palliative care that is holistic aims at improving lifes quality of both the patients and caregivers through preventing and relieving suffering and treating other problem, physical, psychosocial and spiritual. This kind of care is guided by the great wealth of knowledge that other areas of life such as the cultural or spiritual may have some implications on the physical wellbeing. To effectively treat and support a palliative patient, it is important that all these areas be looked at. As demonstrated by Wiener, Weaver, Bell and Sansom (2015), this greatly improves the quality of care and longevity of the person involved. To understand the significance of the wholesome/holistic approach, we illustrate using an example. Following is the example. Research has demonstrated that the cultural and spiritual beliefs of patients significantly guide their decisions, including those that pertain to health. Therefore, it is important to discuss with the patient about their spiritual, cultural or other beliefs that have the potential of interfering with optimal care. It follows also, that a nurse need be more objective and acceptive when offering care so as not to create any barriers to effective care. Since the main aim of holistic care is to treat the patient wholesomely, the nurse should sometimes put their beliefs at bay if it is for the better of care. Each person on the universe is unique in their own ways. For this reason, one can conclude that it is only fair that palliative care be individualized for each patient. We have seen above that palliative care aims at healing the body, the soul and the mind. Offering holistic palliative care greatly improves the life of a patient. Studies have reported that patients refer to nurses who offer holistic care as those nurses who truly care. Considering the role of a nurse, it might seem overwhelming to offer such kind of care. When you consider that the nurse must deal with several patients, their care givers and that the time is limited, holistic palliative care may seem like a goal that cannot be accomplished. As a nurse therefore, the whole experience could be draining and tiresome. To the relief of the nurse, extensive research has demonstrated that what is important may not be the amount of time that is available but how the nurse spends the time that is available (Brant, 2017). The focus should be striving to make the most out of the available time. This has the potential of improving outcomes leading to happier patients. Nurses would also be happier since it would be a sign of success on their work. Numerous ways in which a nurse can make the best out of the time available with a client have been developed. These are very simple activities such as smiling at the patient and calling them by their names. Nurses too, like all other human beings have their own personal value systems and beliefs. They hail from different cultural and spiritual backgrounds and have different world views. Personal value systems and beliefs inevitably affect how we do what we do and how we relate with other people (Kelley and Morrison, 2015). Take for instance a nurse who has a definition of what dressing and being modest is like. If they come across a patient who dresses otherwise, they might judge the patients as being immodest. To avoid conflicting with patients over issues that are not medical related, nurses should endeavour to be more objective and acceptive (Murray et al, 2017). Someone who has these characteristics (objective and acceptive) is likely to accommodate other peoples beliefs, cultures and world view rather than viewing theirs as the supreme. This would greatly help since the nurse is likely to meet many people all with different beliefs and value systems. The best thing would be working on ones mind and appreciating others and their cultures rather than judging them. The beliefs that a nurse has could affect relationship with a client immensely. For instance, it is necessary to establish a helping relationship between the nurse and the client. Where the nurses beliefs conflict with those of the patient, this relationship is not likely to be successful (Stoddart and Evans, 2017). In some instances, the nurse could try to influence the patient to adopt a different belief. This is likely to be met by resistance from the patient which may negatively affect the helping relationship. In addition to negatively affecting the helping relationships it might establish communication barriers. This implies a situation where the nurse interacts with the patient subjectively rather than objectively because of how they know them. Beliefs could also lead to bias where the nurse becomes fonder of some patients than others. Most of these beliefs are subjective and have negative consequences. beliefs could also have positive effects. For instance, a nurse who believ es that all people are equal, and none should be favoured over the other is likely to maintain objectivity when dealing with patients. In conclusion, palliative care aims at improving the quality of life of the terminally ill. For palliative care to achieve the above-mentioned purpose, it should ensure that the whole person rather than just the physical is taken care of. Holistic care leads to improved life quality and even longer life. Like other people, nurses have personal beliefs. Care should be taken to avoid conflict with patients over personal beliefs. For this to be realized, the nurse should be sure to employ objectivity and be more acceptive. References Australia, P. C. (2005).Standards for providing quality palliative care for all Australians. Palliative Care Australia. Alliance, W. P. C., World Health Organization. (2014). Global atlas of palliative care at the end of life.London: Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance. Pratt, M., Wood, M. (2015).Art therapy in palliative care: The creative response. Routledge. Wiener, L., Weaver, M. S., Bell, C. J., Sansom-Daly, U. M. (2015). 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