Question

palative care focuses on addressing the needs of a person who has been diagnosed with a life limiting or terminal illness. what holistic needs may person have ?

Answer 1

Palliative care focuses on addressing the needs of a person who has been diagnosed with a life-limiting or terminal illness. What holistic needs may a person have?

Holistic needs mean all the needs of the whole person which are connected to the mind, body, and spirit. Holistic needs include patients different emotional, occupational, physical, social, intellectual, and spiritual needs.

*Physical needs include addressing a wide range of physical problems, such as pain, malnutrition, dehydration, constipation, bedsore, infections, incontinence, dyspnea, nausea, vomiting, etc.

*Psychosocial and spiritual needs including addressing the issues like depression, paranoia anxiety, guilt, stress, fear about family, worry about children, worthlessness, sadness, fear, suicidal thoughts, etc.

In most of the treatment settings, health care professionals are only taking care of the physical needs of the patient. The patient is treating as a ‘particular case” than a human being. Health is very much connected with its determinants. Health is not only about the physical wellbeing of individuals. In a holistic care approach, each patient is considered as a unique individual and will always give interventions to the holistic needs of the patients and respect the patient’s values and comfort. Palliative care is a holistic, comprehensive approach to improve the quality of life of patients (with life-limiting or terminal illness) and their families. It provides a support system to help the family during the patient’s illness and in patient’s bereavement also. A vital element of palliative care is the holistic care approach in managing the health-related sufferings associated with the terminal or other life-limiting illnesses of the patients. The multidisciplinary teams in palliative care usually consist of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, social workers, and volunteers who will provide care and support according to this holistic approach. Every member of this team is responsible for addressing these holistic needs. The holistic need-based approach in palliative care focuses to minimize the physical, psychosocial and spiritual suffering of patients and their family members.