Nursing Practice and Palliative Care

Nursing Practice and Palliative Care
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Palliative care is a specialized care system focused on those with serious ailments. It is meant to improve the quality of life of the affected individual and family alike. Palliative care is dispatched by special personnel who work hand in hand with the patient’s doctor to take care of the affected patient. It can be carried out at any age irrespective of the stage of the ailment(s) and can be done alongside curative therapies. The nurses involved in the palliative care are exposed to wide range of risks; the major one being the risk of contraction of the ailment in the case of an infective chronic disease like the Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Palliative care focusses on the symptoms of the disease and serves to prepare the patient for medication. Appropriate practices during palliative care include the use of sedation to reduce the pain experienced, for example, cancer patients require incessant deep sedation especially at the last stages of the disease (Gade .G., 2008). Inappropriate practices during palliative care include the use of artificial hydration on patients in their terminal phase or stage. Artificial hydration usually arouses complications that would make the treatment of the disease difficult especially when they are under deep sedation.
The role of a Bachelor of Science Nurse (BSN) nurse has been deemed more of a psychosocial than a medical one. The BSN nurse provides an active end-of-life care to the patient and family. A BSN nur...