Palliative Life Care

Running head: PALLIATIVE LIFE CARE
PALLIATIVE LIFE CARE
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1PALLIATIVE LIFE CARE
Palliative care is defined as a care endowment that comprises of providing complete
care to the people suffering from life threatening diseases and concentrating on achieving the
exclusive social, physical, spirit and psychological needs of the patients. Palliative care
involves optimizing the quality of life and care to the patient and the family members by
promoting comfort and relief to them, thus inhibiting the sufferings (Mousing et al., 2018).
This essay primarily focus to analyse the patient Mrs Brown, who is a 62 year old retired
women with severe issue of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This essay will
provide a detail discussion on the two major nursing strategies in order to manage the
patient’s condition. The strategies will give a detail idea concerning how the palliative care
and attention is executed for specific patient (Iyer, Benzo & Bakitas, 2018).
Mrs Brown is a retired women who lives with her husband and working as a part time
along with her husband. The patient is recently suffering from shortness of breath and
coughing, which is getting deteriorated day by day. She was hospitalised thrice previously
because of her increasing bad health condition due to COPD. From the preceding 2 days the
patient is facing severe health issue of chronic cough associated with white mucus. Therefore,
these symptoms of Mrs Brown is indicating reappearance of COPD, hence the foremost
nursing priority will be to report the physical symptoms of the patient using pharmacological
intrusion (Russo et al., 2018). It is crucial to address the physical issues of the patient related
to COPD in order to decrease the danger of respiratory catastrophe and thus avoiding any
further complication in the patient.
The primary nursing strategy will be to report the physical symptom of shortness of
breath that includes the consumption of corticosteroid. Agusti et al., (2018) supported the
incidence that the use of inhaled corticosteroid is related with a reduction in level of
exacerbation of the patient’s COPD. Total corticosteroid consumption is considered as a
standard portion of management and treatment of exacerbations. It is also considered as the

2PALLIATIVE LIFE CARE
main aspects, which leads to the welfares for patient suffering from COPD like Mrs Brown. It
includes improvement in rate of oxygenation and lung function thus donating to quick
recovery period and minimum stay in hospital. In case of COPD patient, oral corticosteroid is
most beneficial as compared to nebulized corticosteroid that is needed only in acute
exacerbation. Stolz et al., (2018) states that consumption of oral corticosteroid is highly
suggested for treatment and management of exacerbation with the major advantage of
corticosteroid treatment relating to good bioavailability and better comfort of administration.
Therefore, initiation of corticosteroid treatment is highly recommended for Mrs Brown as is
will help her to reduce the symptom of breathlessness and also reduce economic and social
burden related with repeated hospitalization.
Viniol & Vogelmeier (2018) provided an evidence stating that the patients suffering
from severe exacerbation should be cured with methodical corticosteroid for approximately
7-14 days. The total period of treatment will also define the threat of adverse outcome for
patient. The investigation regarding the effect of long or short period corticosteroid treatment
resulted that the patient with short period of corticosteroid treatment will have less possibility
of any adverse effect as compared with longer period of course. Hence, in case of Mrs
Brown, it is strategic to provide her with course of short period corticosteroid treatment to
address her physical symptoms associated with exacerbation of COPD and thus provide her
with emotional and mental relief with better physical health condition (Bostock, 2018).
As a portion of palliative care approach, it is essential to report the spiritual or
physiological need of the patient Mrs Brown in order to guarantee that the care practice is
improved throughout her stay in the hospital (Halpin, 2018). However, her mental condition
was affecting her health condition, which includes high risk of anxiety and depression. Due to
her continuous breathlessness she was feeling trapped and could not move around in the
house and she was totally dependent on her husband and family to take in charge of her