Palliative Care Practice Case Study 2022

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Running head: PALLIATIVE CARE PRACTICE
PALLIATIVE CARE PRACTICE
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s name

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PALLIATIVE CARE PRACTICE
Introduction
Palliative care aims at improving the quality of life of patients as well as their families
who are facing problems with life-threatening illness by preventing their sufferings through early
diagnosis and impeccable assessments and giving treatment and care to promote physical,
physiological and psychological wellbeing of the patients (Voumard et al., 2018). Medical
professionals and nurses should provide a holistical approach to care considering culture,
ethnicity, beliefs, values and preferences of the patients (Zamanzadeh et al., 2015). Palliative
care focuses on individualized care of the patient through patient centred approach and active
management of the symptoms or distress the patient and the family is facing by implementation
of care strategy through a multidisciplinary approach so that all aspects of the patients can be
addressed and treated accordingly (Vissers et al., 2013). Palliative care also involves supporting
of the patients and their family members as much as possible till their death (Kelley, & Morrison,
2015). This paper is a perfect illustration of three different cases where palliative care is
implemented in there different scenarios where the central theme was to support during their end
of life stage and provide them and their families with the best available care.

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PALLIATIVE CARE PRACTICE
Discussion
Case study 1
1. Betty is aware of her medical condition and she admits that 2 years ago she was told by the
doctors about her kidney dysfunction which was later diagnosed as stage 3 chronic kidney
disease by the renal specialist. She also confesses that she has type 2 diabetes and
hypertension. However, Betty was not aware of the fact that her kidney is not working at all
for which she was on a special diet and had to take proper medications. Although, she seems
happy with the service provided as she admits that her caring team was very supportive and
was quite aware of her kidney condition that will get worsen with time, but gets worried and
concerned about the new symptoms she was experiencing. She was lethargic, felt tired all the
time, she was nauseated at times and her legs were oedematous. She was planning to discuss
about these symptoms the next day at the clinic. Betty was seeking treatment and wanted to
know what will happen when she gets sicker. The multidisciplinary team should plan a
patient centred care strategy and give her information she was seeking along with the
required treatment by diagnosing these conditions (Vissers et al., 2013). Nausea and
shortness of breath can be caused as a result of a variety of medical conditions including
heart failure, cardiac diseases and also diabetes with chronic kidney impairment (Ponikowski
et al., 2014). Since, she had multiple comorbidities like diabetes type II, ischemic heart
disease and peripheral vascular disease she developed the symptoms of cardiac diseases and
also developed a condition ‘edema’ characterised by swollen legs that is caused by poor