Palliative care is an approach to care focusing on promoting comfort through relieving pain while a person is facing a life threatening illness. The palliative care approach is guided by the gaols chosen by the patient and family and by accepted standards of health care. Along with enhancing quality of life, palliative care also integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care as well as using a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling. Palliative care affirms life and regards death as a normal process. Palliative …show more content…
Good communication between health professionals, family members and to the patient is essential. There are different methods of communicating. We can communicate verbally by using words or non-verbally using hand gestures, facial expressions and body posture. While communicating verbally to patients or family members, it is important to speak clearly, avoid medical jargon and ensure eye contact. Likewise while listening to family members or to the patient, it is important to seek clarification by paraphrasing or summarising what they said. Confidentiality is also important for the healthcare worker to bare in mind. It would be important to ensure conversation or questions from family members are responded to and held in private, non-disruptive areas. It is also important for the health care worker to be observant of non-verbal communication form patients as they may learn more this way for example the patient may be in pain but may not tell anyone so this may be discovered through facial expressions. Either way, verbal and non-verbal communication is essential in palliative care for effective multidisciplinary team work and effective treatment (Buckley, …show more content…
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