Most agencies that provide palliative care have their own specific regulations and practices, but overall, many adhere to general clinical practice guidelines. Such principles help ensure that patients are as comfortable as possible while obtaining end of life care. The many different palliative care guidelines vary from dealing with pain management to ensuring that patients remain as dignified and content as possible.
A major component of the different palliative care guidelines for any end of life care provider is managing pain. Patients may suffer from painful long-term diseases with no cure in sight, or they may feel pain only occasionally. Either way, caretakers often need to make sure to determine when patients are suffering, especially if they cannot communicate well. Additionally, caretakers need to find out what is causing the discomfort, and then properly administer the appropriate medications. Oral medications are often the most widely given.
Physical pain is often only considered one small aspect of different palliative care guidelines. Many end of life care centers also pay attention to problems that are social, psychological, spiritual, cultural, and intellectual in nature, to name a few. This is often considered the concept of total pain, and is especially addressed when cancer is involved. In most cases, the goal is not only to relieve patients of any kind of pain, but also to keep them as alert and involved with their own lives as much as possible.
Many different palliative care guidelines focus on keeping patients both comfortable and dignified. As such, most palliative care providers attempt to help patients with tasks related to daily living. Keeping patients functioning normally for as long as they are comfortable is often important, and family and friends are often called upon to help in this endeavor. Similarly, in most cases, artificial means of keeping patients hydrated or fed are rarely used as they are considered invasive. Instead, patients are typically offered fluids by mouth for as long as they are able to accept them comfortably.
In general, the idea of end of life care is to keep patients content and pain free, and not necessarily to cure them. After all, many patients enter this type of care with the knowledge that they will most likely never be cured, especially since many have a short life expectancy due to a terminal illness. Therefore, most of the different palliative care guidelines are not centered on emergency care, invasive diagnostic tests, or surgical interventions unless absolutely necessary for the comfort of patients.
