The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment
The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment
NO fancy fonts,please use arial or times new roman
NO fancy backgrounds, pick a simple format and stay with it
References bottom right on each slide and again on reference page
FIRST slide should be introduction
LAST Slide should be conclusion/further reading/advice/guidance/references
EIGHT CONTENT SLIDES
Each content slide no more than eight lines (bullet points) or ONE diagram/picture
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
The slides should guide you in your presentation, do not read the slides out loud
Please send slides and reference list to me on the Monday before you are presenting
Please be mindful when your colleagues are presenting, pay attention, be supportive,
If you do not enjoy public speaking it is VITAL that you choose a topic that you are interested in
Do not try to include every thing you know in the presentation
Introduction
Palliative or end-of-life care is mainly the medical care that supports those geriatrics who needs to improve their quality of life.
Such palliative care relieves and prevents these individuals from suffering by detecting the most probable diseases by assessment and engaging them in expert pain treatment.
There are projections that by 2060, the world will have many individuals requiring palliative care, thus requiring to formulate appropriate basic personal care (World Health Organization, 2021)The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
The main reason is to ensure these elderly individuals receive quality life care.
There is also a need for their families to get physical, psychological, and emotional support to improve how they handle the patients.
However, the most important factor in palliative care is relieving the patients and families of unnecessary medical expenditures.
The presentation will evaluate the phases and importance of palliative care, its challenges, and the ethical considerations.
Also, the presentation will evaluate the most effective ways to improve end-of-life care.
Phases of Palliative Care
The aging population is always associated with one or more chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer or respiratory illnesses.
Most elderly Americans, especially those with chronic illnesses, experience various difficulties as they try to access quality healthcare.
The population does not only suffer to look for quality healthcare but also affordable healthcare cost to reduce their burden (World Health Organization, 2021)The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
The main care cost burden is usually on hospital readmission, futile care, and unnecessary emergency department visits.
Therefore, the most effective palliative care will involve early planning on the current and ongoing treatment plans, the illness progression, and the most effective medicines to relieve the symptoms.
The geriatrics also need emotional support from various individuals like therapists, social workers, and chaplaincies to help them enhance their view of life.
The third phase will involve the early stage care, where the healthcare providers must help these individuals with an alternative to help them be more independent, especially during home-based care.
In the late stage of care, where a healthcare provider is involved, the patient and family can decide to continue with home-based care or engage the hospice care for emotional support and symptom management.
Effectiveness of Integration of Palliative and Geriatric Care
Palliative and Geriatric care are medical specialties that are distinctive and overlapping simultaneously.
They present themselves as highly interdisciplinary and multi-professional fields that are more family and patient-centered (National Institute of Aging, 2021)The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
They aim to improve quality of life, social participation, and personal capabilities.
Therefore, the role that palliative and Geriatric specialties play is inter-specialty collaboration.
From a global approach, such an integrative approach helps the fragmented medical world to assess the patient’s life situation using the global perspective.
As the world continues embracing continuity of care and integrated care models, it is also necessary to embrace palliative and geriatric care.
That can be through engaging in inter-specialty continued education.
Such education integration is essential since it helps the healthcare providers gain effective comfort-oriented goals.
ORDER HERE
Geriatric Care Challenges: Ineffective Communication
The main challenge affecting palliative care concerns effective communication.
Communication is integral in end-of-life care since it helps the patients and their families understand the situation comprehensively.
Also, it enables the healthcare providers, patients, and their family formulate better care and treatment plan.
However, evidence proves that end-of-life communication infrequently occurs between the caregivers and the patients (Akdeniz et al., 2021)The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
Infrequent communication may impair how geriatric patients receive care, thus worsening their chronic conditions.
For instance, patients with heart conditions may interrupt the elderly quality of life due to prevailing symptoms like fatigue and edema.
Such factors may worsen if the patients and their families do not communicate with the healthcare providers since it will result in poor management of illness.
Polypharmacy, multimorbidity, and frailty may also impact poor illness management.
Geriatric Care Challenges: Making Decisions for the Patients
Making healthcare decisions for elderly patients who are severely ill can be challenging.
Most may anticipate death and fail to recognize their life purpose.
Most end-of-life patients decisions have to be made by their families and at times the healthcare professionals since are usually not in a capacity to make full decisions.
For instance, there are cases where the family may decide to take the patient to hospice care (National Institute of Aging, 2022).
The decision may end up affecting these patients since they may start feeling unwanted.
Also, when these patients need hospitalization, they may fail to recognize the effectiveness of the intervention.
Mainly these issues are brought by the patient’s cognition and recollection deficits facilitated by individuals’ values and inability to understand the non-verbal indications of patients that cannot articulate clear communications.
Hence, it is always essential for caregivers to engage in prudent judgment to prevent subjecting the patients to futile overtreatment or ageist undertreatment. The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment
Geriatric Care Challenges: Poor Care Coordination
Care coordination is another issue facing older patients care during their end-of-life phase.
As a result, healthcare facilities are experiencing wasted resources which weakens the healthcare system and impacts patients’ quality of life.
That is because a variety of older population fails to adhere to medication and other nursing interventions.
Such factors lead to frequent hospitalization and readmission for conditions that would have easily been controlled if coordinated care had been emphasized.
Some factors that lead to poor care coordination include conflicting recommendations and exaggerated polypharmacy since they risk patients’ conditions more than the diseases.
According to Akdeniz et al. (2021)The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment, these imbalances happen due to specialists’ multitudes and insufficient care continuity.
An example is deciding to provide home-based palliative care with no objective way to provide quality care.
Hence, healthcare providers and caregivers need education on effectively engaging in home-based care as part of end-of-life intervention.
Ethical Considerations in End-of-Life Care
The main aim of caring for chronic illness patients is to alleviate their suffering.
Also, the care helps optimize their quality of life until death and ensures family comfort after these patients die.
All these factors are not easy since the patient’s families and the healthcare providers need to intervene in the patient’s condition.
For instance, they may decide to prolong the patient life through medical technologies or wait for the patient to die naturally, thus posing ethical dilemmas.
Hence, before making any decisions, healthcare professionals must consider biomedical ethics, especially nonmaleficence and beneficence principles (Akdeniz et al, 2021).
Hence, any decision that the healthcare providers make toward end-of-life patients must be based on the patient’s interest and to prevent any harm.
Also, in the cases where the family members are the ones to make decisions, it is essential to evaluate their emotional and psychological statuses to prevent implicating the patient’s life further.
Therefore, healthcare professionals must provide all necessary information to the patients and families to facilitate an informed decision-making process for the end-of-life patient The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
End-of-Life Promising Solutions
Palliative care provides family and patient-centered care to improve the quality of life and prevent patients from suffering from their prevailing conditions.
The main problems associated with palliative care include ineffective communication, lack of care coordination, and patient decision-making.
The most promising solution is to involve the patients and family members in creating sustainable and achievable goals concerning ways to steer the care and treatment plan forward by being objective of their care needs and preferences including cultural beliefs and preferences (National Institute of Health, 2021)
There will also need to engage advanced directives when making end-of-life decisions, including the do not resuscitate order or other legal documents.
The patient and their families will need spiritual and psychosocial support to help them cope with the emotional and physical conditions they experience.
The healthcare providers should always aim to engage the patients and their families in patient education programs.
The intervention will help to manage the symptoms, including using evidence-based strategies to improve the patient’s coping mechanism.
Also, patient education will require better communication strategies that will help debunk all myths surrounding palliative and end-of-life care, including outlining the benefits of caring for severely ill patients The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
Conclusion
Palliative and end-of-life care in gerontology is an integral approach that aims to reduce life-threatening illnesses in older adults.
During that stage of life, patients and their families require emotional, physical, psychological, and medical support.
Hence, healthcare professionals should communicate effectively during palliative care to better understand patients and their families.
The main challenges that palliative and end-of-life care face include making decisions for the patients, ineffective communication, and poor care coordination.
Such challenges paralyze the effectiveness of combining palliative and geriatric interventions in ensuring that patients’ needs and preferences are met.
Apart from these challenges, ethical dilemmas are other considerations that healthcare professionals need to consider when attending to end-of-life patients and families.
Hence, there is a need to consider biomedical ethics like the nonmaleficence and beneficence principles to prevent adverse effects on patients’ conditions.
However, some promising solutions include engaging the patients and families in care and treatment plans and incorporating other legal considerations like the do not resuscitate order The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment.
Conclusion/Further Reading/Advice/Guidance/References
Akdeniz, M., Yardımcı, B., & Kavukcu, E. (2021). Ethical considerations at the end-of-life care. SAGE Open Medicine, 9, 20503121211000918. doi: 10.1177/20503121211000918
National Institute of Aging (December 17, 2021). Making Decisions for Someone at the End of Life. NIH. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/making-decisions-someone-end-life
ORDER TODAY
National Institute of Aging (January 31, 2022). Different Care Settings at the End of Life. NIH. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/different-care-settings-end-life
National Institute of Aging (May 14, 2021). What Are Palliative Care and Hospice Care? NIH. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-are-palliative-care-and-hospice-care
World Health Organization (October 5, 2021). WHO takes steps to address the glaring shortage of quality palliative care services. https://www.who.int/news/item/05-10-2021-who-takes-steps-to-address-glaring-shortage-of-quality-palliative-care-services. The End Of Life Care In Gerontology Assignment