Palliative Care Activities for the Elderly

When our loved ones fall into palliative care due to accidents -traumas, or serious illnesses like cancer, heart failure, and neurological damage, everything becomes a joyless experience for the person concerned. It takes away the desire to live for the patient and turns out to be a directionless effort for the caring family. Palliative care is all about managing the treatment protocol with the intent to cure it on a long-term plan. It is a systematic, compassionate, and thoughtful approach that includes medical interventions, bereavement counseling, spiritual awakening, and keeping them as comfortable, hygienic, and safe as possible. While it needs no hospitalizations, regular doctor consults and a health-appropriate diet are crucial to this journey.

4 Palliative Care Activities for the Elderly

1. Physical Health

Depending on each illness or physical capability, apart from medication, various activities need to begin for them to keep themselves fit and move toward healing. It can be walking in parks or nature, light sitting exercises, breathing exercises, yoga, laughter therapy, physiotherapy, etc.

2. Mental Health

Seniors need to be away from any isolation, and usually, depression becomes our best friend when we are down and out physically. They start feeling like a burden on the entire family. Therefore, it becomes all the more important to extend all possible counseling. Arrange games and puzzles that trigger their brain cells and keep them engaged. Get them closer to their hobbies like drawing, singing, crafts, gardening, reading, etc. Surround them with people, conversations, and visuals that they enjoy.

3. Spiritual Connect

The elderly population is always open to embracing anything that connects them spiritually on a deeper level. Listening to bhajans, devotional songs, chanting, or any spiritual talks by gurus give them peace and calm their nerves. Aromatic rooms, their God picture on their bedside, etc., all generate the power to fight the illness and are highly recommended for patients confined to beds.

4. Social Happiness

When under palliative care, families must establish constant contact, irrespective of one’s location, via visits, calls, or video calls. One needs to keep track of their emotions, pains, and challenges. Infusing them with hope for better health has to be our motto. We can make them part of all celebrations and festivals as watching other people happy also builds an environment full of happiness. Hence, assisted living facilities are the way forward as they cover all aspects with appropriate activities for palliative care patients.

9 Benefits of Palliative Care Activities

• Palliative care activities for the elderly living in any facility support the family, not limited to patients, as caring for them at home gets stressful beyond imagination.
• There is medical supervision with nurses on duty who administer medicines on time, overlook the prescribed diets, and feed them as needed.
• Palliative Care activities not just on the body but also on the mind, heart, and willpower.
• It provides excellent pain and symptom management and saves unnecessary hospital visits.
• It is always about the elderly patient first and recognizing their wants, desires, and comfort, be it the food they like, things they like to indulge or just being a listening ear to their rants. That inclusiveness builds their will to recover.
• A happy mind creates hormones that bring in a stronger immunity to fight off diseases.
• It elongates lifespan, keeping the quality and preventing possible depression.
• Caregiver and patient both have a more satisfying experience towards a common goal.
• Families are less at jitters as they are constantly updated on progress made with or without them around.

You may like to read this: Palliative Care for Elderly – A Complete Guide

Why PapayaCare is Best for Elderly Palliative Care?

When any of our elderly loved ones move into the need for palliative care, our whole life turns upside down. Finding the bandwidth of time in the daily whirlwind of life, having the necessary resources to care for, and keeping them away from any feeling of isolation is an uphill task. Look no further than PapayaCare in Ahmedabad, the one and only senior assisted living facility that provides round-the-clock assistance and care for the elderly in palliative care. It has all the necessary medical arrangements, be it oxygen, tube deeding, nebulizers, ECG, wheelchairs, and hospital beds backed with nursing assistance to administer medicines and follow treatment protocol at all times.

The facility is a safe and secure establishment with a transparent communication policy along with family members. Be it non-skid tiles, bathroom bars, surveillance cameras, 24 hour wi-fi connection, elevator, or wheelchair access, all there under one roof. There is an activity schedule that caters to various interests of individuals. The focus is to make a maximum number of residents participate, be it music, dance, games, board games, or fun recreational activities for palliative care patients. Even those bedridden have television music or people for constant entertainment or engagement. Expertise lies in their ability to counsel according to individual conditions.

Conclusion

The conditions of seniors under palliative care, considering their age, may have more downs than ups. An assumption that palliative care member is at the mercy of their own destiny and their life span is limited is just that, an assumption. Any family is for keeps, and we must do everything possible to give them a quality of life that brings the will in them alive to keep them alive.