Added: 07/29/2007 |
The Large Palette of Items in Effective Palliative CareMen like to see themselves as problem solvers. When a man presents his family with a problem, he tends to fee that he has "let his family down". During palliative care, friends and family must work to help the prostate cancer patient banish any thought that he has somehow "failed" his family. The following article offers loved ones information that could prove useful as they set out calm the anxieties of the prostate cancer patient.
Palliative care should help to control the amount of pain felt by the prostate cancer patient. At the same time, palliative care must prevent the occurrence of potential complications. In order to guarantee delivery of those two items, the palliating care should include special hospital services.
Radiation therapy can reduce the tumor mass in the patient with prostate cancer. The man with a reduced tumor mass suffers less pain. For that reason, good palliative care should include some radiation therapy.
All of the offerings that deliver palliating care must acknowledge the mind-set of the prostate cancer patient. Generally, that man is in need of spiritual support. He faces what is for him an unfamiliar arena of life, that of confronting the end of life. He often feels very powerless, and that powerlessness causes a sense of anxiety.
That points out why friends and family play such a crucial role in the delivery of palliating care. Friends and family can offer spiritual support. They can help hold the family together, thus allowing it to function as normally as possible.
Friends and family might want to work with the health professionals to schedule the times of the radiation therapy. Friends and family need to appreciate the hidden benefits of such therapy. Radiation therapy reduces the need for narcotics. Male patients feel more comfortable dealing with their pain in the absence of strong medicines.
Radiation therapy prolongs the amount of time when the male patient can remain alert. A male patient prefers to remain alert, because he then feels more in control of the situation. Friends and family should expect to hear the patient discuss his worries. Friends and family might encourage the patient to undertake productive worry.
Productive worry involves worry that demonstrates an understanding of the factual conditions. During productive worry the patient worries a little bit at a time and channels his worries in the proper direction. Specialists on palliative care point to productive worry as an effective way to deal with a serious illness.
When friends and family can encourage productive worry, they allow the male prostate cancer patient to limit the matter to which he will give attention. In that way the patient has less chance to be overwhelmed by countless problems. He faces less risk for feeling unable to cope with his situation.
Friends and family might even choose to speak openly about “productive worry.”
Men generally like to be productive. Men find both consolation and a sense of control in the fact that even worry can be productive.
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