Palliative Care Facts from the Natick Visiting Nurse Association

What is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is meant to improve the quality of life for patients dealing with serious, chronic or terminal illnesses. It can address a patient’s psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being, as well as physical symptoms.

The primary focus of palliative care is managing pain and providing relief from related symptoms, such as shortness of breath, fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite or difficulty swallowing or sleeping. It helps patients gain the strength to carry on with daily life and to maintain a positive outlook. It also improves their ability to tolerate medical treatments.

Palliative care is well-suited for patients who want to manage symptoms associated with active treatment for disease (e.g., chemotherapy and radiation) and other effects of chronic illness. This enables patients to maintain their independence and a higher quality of life. Click here to download our "COMFORTCARE"Fact Sheet

What is the difference between Palliative Care and Hospice Care?

The goal of palliative care is to manage pain and relieve other symptoms. Though most closely associated with serious illnesses at an advanced stage—such as terminal cancer, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) or multiple sclerosis—-palliative care can also be given along with curative treatments.

The goal of hospice is to prepare the patient and his/her family for death. It's generally appropriate for someone with a terminal illness and life expectancy of six months or less.

Often, patients view palliative care, administered at home, as a “bridge” to hospice care. Though facing a serious illness, their focus is on experiencing life as fully as they can.

What are the benefits of Palliative Care?

• High-quality palliative care can make the difference between a comfortable existence and one that involves suffering. There is often no need for patients to suffer from shortness of breath, uncontrolled pain, or nausea. (Palliative care also can help a patient’s loved ones begin to deal with the issues of grief and bereavement).
•  Palliative care may even save lives. In a Massachusetts General Hospital study of 151 Boston-area patients with lung cancer, those who received early palliative care lived longer, achieved better symptom management, and were less depressed and anxious than patients getting standard care.
  

Coordination:

• Involvement of palliative caregivers and coordination of care is not always the norm when it comes to treating patients with advanced disease. A complex case may be managed by clinicians in specialties ranging from cardiology to endocrinology and pulmonology, but no one specialist may be focused meaningfully on the patient's level of comfort or distress, or consider whether family caregivers could also benefit from support.

Choice:

• Palliative care also gives patients a choice at a crucial juncture in their lives. Those electing palliative care have often established long-standing relationships with visiting nurses, and find it more comfortable to continue working with caregivers that they know and trust, especially in a home environment.

Who Provides the Care?

A palliative care team can include nurses, rehabilitation therapists, social workers, home health aides, and more.

This multidisciplinary team creates and implements a plan of care based not only on a patient's diagnosis but on the challenges he/she may be struggling with - from anxiety about the difficulty of caring for young children while ill, to a family caregiver's stress or depression.

What Kind of Care is Provided in this Way?

Working in partnership with a patient’s primary care physician, the palliative care team provides:

• Close, clear communication
• Expert management of pain and relief of symptoms
  
• Help navigating the healthcare system
  
• Guidance with difficult and complex treatment choices
  
• Emotional and spiritual support for patients and their families
  
• Help preparing for death
  
• Bereavement support
  

What Credentials do Palliative Care Nurses Hold?

• The National Board for Certification of Hospice and Palliative Nurses (NBCHPN®) CHDP certification validates a nurse’s competence and knowledge in the specialized area of Hospice and Palliative Care. This certification is highly valued. The certification examination for Hospice and Palliative Care Nurses is offered by the American Board of Nursing Specialties.
  
• The Natick VNA values staff education and in preparation for this program, the staff of the Palliative Care team completed a 6-week course on palliative care, pain and symptom management, working toward certification as Hospice and Palliative Care nurses and nursing assistants. In addition, all Natick VNA staff participated in training with Carol Curtiss, MSN, RN, BC and a nationally known speaker and educator on pain and palliative care.
  
• The Natick VNA’s social work staff has extensive experience in helping patients and their families cope with illness and issues around death and dying.
  

Other Facts

Palliative medicine officially became a medical subspecialty in 2006 (American Board of Medical Specialties).

Approximately 90 million Americans are living with serious and life-threatening illness, and this number is expected to more than double over the next 25 years with the aging of the baby boomers.

By 2020, the number of people living with at least one chronic illness will increase to 157 million. Today, seven out of ten Americans die from chronic disease.

Approximately 6,000,000 people in the United States could benefit from palliative care.

The Natick Visiting Nurse Association is the premier free-standing, not-for-profit home health care provider in Boston’s MetroWest area. The agency is dedicated to excellence in providing caring and compassionate multi-disciplinary health services to patients in their homes across every stage of life. Since 1899, the Natick VNA has been a vital community resource, often the “safety net,” for thousands of people living in the Boston suburbs. The agency’s services help patients reduce hospitalizations and visits to emergency rooms, and lead more independent lives. The medical specialists at Natick VNA make over 60,000 visits each year to more than 2,100 people, with a case load of 350 people a day. Care is provided in more than 20 towns in Boston’s MetroWest area. The primary service area includes: Ashland, Dover, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Hudson, Marlborough, Medfield, Medway, Millis, Natick, Needham, Newton, Northborough, Sherborn, Southborough, Sudbury, Wayland, Wellesley, Westborough, and Weston. The Natick VNA is headquartered at 209 West Central Street, Suite 313, Natick, MA 01760. For more information, visit www.natickvna.org.