Palliative Care, Essay Example

Question 1

Palliative care is defined as specialized medical care for people will serious illnesses while hospice care is defined as end of life care. These two concepts are different because hospice care focuses on making the patient as comfortable as possible throughout the end of their life without likelihood of enhancing their health while palliative care attempts to reduce symptoms and potentially cure the patients. In hospice care, a good death is considered one that is expected, nurses are able to retain control of the situation, the patient will be afforded dignity and privacy, pain will be controlled, the time of death will be controlled, and the patient will have access to information and expertise as needed. In contrast, a bad death is uncontrolled, painful, and the patient has a lack of privacy (Dossey et al, 2009, p.66).

Question 2

There are five stages of grief and loss including denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Nurses can assist their patients through this necessary process by identifying these defining characteristics in the patient and then providing the support they need. Although the support can range based on the personality of the individual, talking to the patient, recommending they speak their feelings to their family, and helping them identify other means of support can greatly help the patient recover to the acceptance phase (Dossey et al, 2009, p.393,508).

Question 4

The cycle of addition involves an emotional trigger which leads to craving, which leads to ritual, which leads to using, which leads to guilt, which furthers the emotional trigger and the cycle perpetuates. In the 12 step program, the term spiritual development and transformation refers to the step in which the person undergoing rehabilitation is expected to accept that they are exhibiting dysfunctional emotional and behavioral patterns and they are ready to make a change. The spirituality term refers to the acceptance of allowing God to remove these personality defects; for those who are not spiritual, it means allowing the change to be made in themselves. Commonly abused drugs include heroin, cocaine, and MDMA. Heroin use leads to euphoria, drowsiness, dizziness, confusion, slowed breathing, and nausea. Cocaine use leads to increased heart rate, increased heart pressure, nasal damage, increased energy, mental alertness, and reduced appetite. MDMA use leads to hallucinogenic effects, tactile sensitivity, lowered inhibition, anxiety, sweating, muscle cramping, impaired memory, sleep disturbances, and addiction. Nurses regularly encounter people who are substance abusers and need to be able to readily identify the symptoms of use to be able to adequately treat the patient for other disorders. Since patients will frequently not report use, this is an essential step in their treatment (Dossey et al, 2009, p.461-475).

Question 7

The family is a significant part of our values, culture, socialization, and well-being because our families are the first people that instill beliefs and ideas in us. They also play an essential role in helping us develop our own ideas and beliefs because they provide us with the means to do so through education and the various objects we interact with throughout our lives. As such the role of family is typically one of primary support; because families want their relatives to do well, they act as excellent listeners and counselors and help people get through tough moments in their lives (Dossey et al, 2009, p.13).

Question 10

Energy healing focuses on the ability of the person to channel his or her own energy into healing power and uses the concepts of aura, chakras, and meridians to facilitate this process. Aura is the distinctive atmosphere that surrounds a person, chakras are major points in the human body that can be targeted for healing, and meridians are the pathways that energy uses to flow through the body. An intention is the goal in healing. Current research has shown that the magnetometers indicate that there are biomagnetic fields associated with the body’s physiological activities which proves that meridians exist. Future research will be used to demonstrate that the basis of this treatment is scientific (Dossey et al, 2009, p.675-689).

References

Dossey, B. M., & Keegan, L. (2009). Holistic Nursing: A handbook for practice (5th ed.).

Dossey, B. M., & Keegan, L. (2013). Holistic Nursing: A handbook for practice (6th ed.).