A Nurse’s Guide in Assisting the Patient towards a Peaceful Death
By integrating the term “peaceful death” in the development of her theory, we can associate her theory to Palliative Care. Not been clearly mentioned the concept of death and dying so it is, we want to give clarification by attempting to apply her theory to this field of nursing.
We learned that for a person to be considered a whole being, he must have a balance in mind and body. Henderson presented it to us by enumerating the 14 basic human needs. What if these needs have been disrupted at the last stage of his journey through life? How can a nurse provide an appropriate care to a dying patient and his family?
In the practice of Palliative Care in the Philippines, we believe that whatever is the disease, however advanced it is, whatever treatments have already been given, there is always something which can be done to improve the quality of life remaining to the patient. The goal is to provide palliative, emotional, spiritual, and psychological support to the terminally ill patients to ensure their sight in the face of death with grace, dignity, and enable their families to cope with the crisis. This goal can be achieved with the help of an interdisciplinary team usually comprise of physicians, nurses, recreational therapists, chaplains, spiritual volunteers and social workers.
The physicians and nurses are partners in the provision of comfort by giving medical care and maintaining his physiological needs. Pain management and symptom control comes in; therefore, they make sure that the first 8 basic needs are met. On the other hand, the chaplains and spiritual volunteers have an enormous impact on the lives of the patient and his family by offering spiritual support. The recreational therapists also play an important role in the early phase of care when the patient is still able to participate in recreational activities that aim to encourage expression of feelings towards an impending death.
The work of Henderson is a great help not only in Palliative care but in different field of nursing which we will explore further in this blog.