Palliative care for cancer patients: Know about its importance and benefits

Irrespective of their age, identity, gender, nationality and status in the society, chronic conditions are challenging to deal with. Facilities and services like palliative care has been treatint patients from within and yet remain hidden among many of us. The amount of efficiency this procedure has is far more than the awareness about the concept among people. Comprehensive cancer care includes cancer prevention, early cancer detection, holistic cancer treatment & palliative care. The leadership at cancer centres in India, oncology trainers, and the entire syllabus of medical students in India must all include and encourage the inclusion of palliative care to treat cancer patients. Along with practising doctors, even pharmaceutical students should have a thorough knowledge of palliative care medications and treatment to indulge in such centres and treat patients. Surviving the life-threatening disease Albeit, cancer is a physical condition, it takes a toll on your mental health. You have to depend on caregivers and loved ones for the most mundane tasks using the washroom, bathing, wearing clothes and many others. And at times it becomes embarrassing no matter how supportive people are. In general to know about someone going through the condition is sad, imagine the patient going through it. For them to cope up with the entire scenario, it is very important to ensure complete care is taken not only in terms of medications but also in terms of mental health. Many a times, cancer leaves a patient with a lot of side effects and emotional stress due to social and financial consequences. Palliative care includes spiritual, mental, psychosocial, emotional and musical therapies so that the patient is at ease while they are healing. Only then they can manage the stress and other consequences that the disease comes with. Lack of palliative care to cancer patients Even with improvements in accessibility and availability of good cancer treatment facilities in metros, 60 % of cancer patients report to the hospitals in the late stages, when they are incurable. The only way to improve their quality of life and survival rates is to make palliative care available to the maximum number of patients. Currently, about 60 lac cancer patients require palliative care but it is only available to 2 % of the patients. The reason is the non-availability of the desired number of palliative care beds/centres, trained palliative care specialists & nurses, and the non-availability of opioids (pain killers) which are available to only 3% of cancer patients. So there are lots of gaps between the need and availability of palliative care. Most medical professionals, medical administrators, and the public do not know what palliative care is. Benefits of palliative care ● Improving the quality of life ● Interpersonal relation and survival rates of patients (if started at the time of diagnosing the late stages of cancer) ● Relieving pain and other distressing physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and social distressing symptoms of patients and their family members ● helping to develop a positive attitude and accept the normal course of illness and its progressions ● making patients understand that with willpower and medical support ● They can work actively to live symptom-free, comfortable and dignified life for years to decades. Lastly, palliative care medicine is a relatively new branch of medicine, and has been recognised by the Medical Council of India in 2010. The author is the Director of Dharamshila Rahat Supportive and Palliative Care. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News, Trending News,  Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.