Palliative Care at Home
Teach the patient and family how to give goodpalliative care at home according to the symptoms
• Give home care interventions which will relieve the patient’ssymptoms, using the Caregiver Booklet.
• Give pain medications (P13-15) and other medications.
• Use other methods for pain control (P16).
• Give information and teach skills.
• Use the Caregiver Booklet to educate the patient, family andcommunity caregivers.The content of columns entitled Home Care on pages P20 to P32is from the Caregiver Booklet. This booklet also has illustrations.
♦ Record medications with instructions
• Use a separate sheet of paper with the name of each medication,
what it is for, and the dose.
♦ Leave the patient as much in charge of his or her own care as possible
• Support the patient to give as much self-care as possible.
• Discuss with the patient who should provide hands-on care.
Examples of non-medical treatment for pain, in addition to
analgesics and special pain medications (adapt locally):
• Support and counselling.
- Psychological, spiritual and emotional support and counselling
should accompany pain medications. Pain can be harder to bear
when there is guilt, fear of dying, loneliness, anxiety, depression.
• Answering questions and explaining what is happening is
important to relieve fear and anxiety.
• Deep breathing and relaxation techniques unless the patient is
psychotic or severely depressed.
• Distraction, music, imagining a calm scene