Palliative Care Approach

This essay focuses on the palliative care approach for terminally ill patients, with a case study of Mrs Brown. It discusses person-centered and community-centered care strategies to provide holistic support. Recommendations are given for Mrs Brown's specific needs.

Running head: PALLIATIVE CARE APPROACH
PALLIATIVE CARE APPROACH
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Palliative care approach is a nursing mechanism or approach that helps the terminally
ill patients live well as much as possible and live long as much as possible (Lynch, Connor &
Clark, 2013). While death is considered to be inevitable and a part of life, palliative care
approach seeks to give maximum support (physical, medical, social and spiritual) to the
carers as well as their family and friends who are fighting against the illness and trauma
associated with it. Various national-level palliative care strategies have been taken up in the
recent times, which include not only family and caregivers, but society, groups, communities
and cultural groups taking part in the caregiving sessions too (Perez et al., 2015). The
respective essay intends to focus on a case study of a terminally ill patient, Mrs Brown and
recommend various strategies and approaches to palliative care for Mrs Brown in her final
days of life.
In case of Mrs Brown who has been suffering from acute breathlessness which has
been detoriating day by day and turning into a terminal illness that could claim life, she had
been diagnosed with depression by her general physician. Her general physician prescribed
palliative care for herself as she was at the juncture of end of her life. However, Mrs Brown
seemed unaware of palliative care, its definition and whereabouts. As she was a senior
citizen, she was unaware of the new and latest changes that has been happening in case of
social care sectors in the country.
Mrs Brown is entitled to receive a holistic palliative care approach which is both
person centred as well as community centred. Person centred palliative care approach
shows respect to the patient’s values, preferences and needs (medical, psychological and/or
spiritual) and give the best possible nursing aid to them according to their social and cultural
settings (Brännström & Boman, 2014). Mrs Brown is entitled to receive both physiological as
well as psychological treatment that might help to reduce her chronic pain and breathlessness.
For physiological treatment, Mrs Brown should be provided with certain drugs such as

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Bronchodilators which is necessary for chronic breathlessness happening during regular
activities or opiates such as Morphine that sedates the patient, thereby, temporarily relieving
them from acute or chronic pain related to their respective illness. But it also should be kept
in mind that the patient does not get used to or addicted towards any of the drugs (Claessens
et al., 2014). A person- centred palliative care approach focuses on unique health needs of
every patient keeping in mind their psychological as well as psychosocial wellbeing. As far
as depression is concerned, she should be assisted with a counsellor who would often counsel
her periodically to take care of her psychological and spiritual needs (Murray et al., 2017). It
is assumed that the acute depression, which Mrs Brown had been diagnosed with previously,
might be the cause of her being claustrophobic or a feel of any form of anxiety. To eradicate
claustrophobia from her mind, steps such as intense psychological counselling, consultation
and spiritual healing should be inculcated. The family of Mrs Brown should also be
considered while providing with person centered palliative care strategy. In this case, Mrs
Brown’s husband should be taken as a unit. Mr Brown should be provided necessary
guidelines to meet the emotional and sentimental demands of Mrs Brown and should also be
advised to spend as much time as possible with his wife. Special caregivers, who also work as
psychological healers should be given proper training in befriending Mrs Brown so that she
doesn’t feel isolated due to her ill-health and age related mobility issues amidst the vast world
outside.
A community centred palliative care strategy ensures that the community
palliative care centre nurses might be integrated and inculcated into a single team,
which would expose the nurses and the caregivers to different environment and
ambience while dealing with the patients from various walks of life (Hilbers et al.,
2018).. A community care centered palliative care strategy focuses on brining in the locality,
society or a community to the patients who are battling with life claiming diseases. In a

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community centred palliative care centre, the nurses and caregivers are given training and
education on group involvement in case of palliative nursing. While it is evident in case of
Mrs Brown that her husband Mr Brown does not stay at home with her in her last few days as
he goes for his part-time job which he has enrolled in, it is assumed that Mrs Brown has quite
a number of times, felt lonely and helpless, thereby falling into the trap of acute depression
that led her to get into eating disorder which made her physiologically weak with poor health
and frailty. Moreover, her increasing COPD has acted as a catalyst in detoriating her physical
health which is affecting her psychosomatically. If an approach of brining in community
of nurses or enrolling Mrs Brown to a community that takes care of terminally ill
patients who are in need of palliative care, a reasonable change in her attitude can be
noticed as it is assumed that the acute depression which she is right now going through
can be curbed to a certain extent by social exposure. With a social exposure to various
other terminally ill patients as well as survivors, opportunities and platforms for exchanging
words and conversing about death as a natural way and part of life, loss, grievances
associated with dying and loss, spiritual destruction felt and survived by the patients would
ensure Mrs Brown identifying people more like her. A naturally occurring community
connector would help her foster a compassionate and benevolent community that would
ensure her practical and pragmatic support in case of end-of-life care and emotional needs
(Abel et al., 2013). Such network communities that work for compassion and benevolence for
the needy would ensure Mrs Brown to ventilate her grievances related to her health,
medicines prescribed to her, the caregivers in charge of her, her psychological and spiritual
conflicts, her loneliness and isolation. Such ventilation of grievances and problems would
ensure Mrs Brown safer, happier, joyful and less painful old-age life that would also help her
minimise pain (physical and mental) as much as possible. The approach of concepts of

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person-centred care to network-centred care might help Mrs Brown fight the difficulties she
is facing in the final phase of her illness and her life.
I, being a student of psychology and palliative care approach, would recommend
“community-centred” palliative care approach for Mrs Brown. Community- centred
palliative care approach would provide Mrs Brown with a vast social exposure wherein she
might find herself identical to the other terminally ill patients who are also surviving with
their illness and has embraced death as a natural phenomenon which is inevitable. A
community centred palliative approach might help Mrs Brown cope up and curb the acute
depression she is right now going through which has also ignited claustrophobia inside her
making her last few days tougher and difficult. With eradication of depression through a
network based personal care, she would find joy and happiness revisited in her final days of
her life, thereby, enabling her to cope with her illness as much as possible and as far as
possible.

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