Caregiver training for palliative patients is an essential program designed to equip caregivers with the necessary skills, knowledge, and emotional resilience to provide high-quality, compassionate care. This training focuses on improving the quality of life for patients facing serious illnesses by addressing their physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs. Given the complex and demanding nature of palliative care, effective caregiver training is vital to ensure that caregivers can manage symptoms, provide comfort, and support both patients and their families through challenging times.
By providing caregivers with comprehensive training, we can ensure that palliative patients receive compassionate, effective, and respectful care, ultimately improving their end-of-life experience and providing crucial support to their families.
Accessing palliative caregiver training involves identifying appropriate resources and programs designed to equip caregivers with the skills and knowledge needed to provide high-quality palliative care.
All palliative care patients in Palliative care unit have access to Caregiver training
As a caregiver you need to respond quickly to manage pain & reports it to the palliative team in the following situations:
Fatigue is a feeling of extreme exhaustion resulting from emotional distress, physical distress or an illness.
Signs of Fatigue include:
Unable to rest or focus. As restlessness becomes worse it can turn into agitation
Signs of Restlessness:
Reasons: starting a new pain medicine, an infection, anxiety or a change in their illness.
Call palliative doctor if nausea or vomiting begins; there is medicine to help. The patient should not stop taking the pain medicine.
Having no bowel movement or small, hard stools
Certain medication i.e. pain medication, cause constipation
Loose or watery stools. May be accompanied by pain and stomach cramping. Diarrhea that does not stop can cause dehydration and increased stomach pain
Shortness of Breath
Act of breathing can be a painful
Rapid, shallow breathing is common. There may be pauses between breaths of 10 to 30 seconds or longer.
Changes in breathing patterns are normal.
Cognitive deterioration
Seizures: look like twitches or tremors in the face and/or extremities.
Infection: main symptoms fever
Bleeding : Patients may be more likely to bleed because of the effects of their illness or medications
Chocking: due to difficulty swallowing