One of the biggest ways that end-of-life care helps your senior to face the stage of life she’s in is by managing symptoms like pain. In fact, pain is one of the most serious end-of-life symptoms that your elderly family member might be facing. Here are just a few of the ways that end-of-life care services work to help your elderly family member to manage the pain that she is experiencing.
Checking Pain Levels Regularly
Lots of family members tend to start believing that if their aging family member isn’t complaining about pain, that might mean that pain is under control. But that’s not necessarily true. Your senior may not want to share her pain levels with you, simply because she doesn’t want to feel as if she’s complaining or bringing the room down. If her pain is because of health issues that are just going to continue worsening, she may feel there’s no point. Caregivers check in with your senior regularly to determine how she’s doing and see if they can try something else to assist her.
Asking Questions to Drill Down
One of the ways that end-of-life care professionals stay on top of how your senior is feeling is by asking her questions. In the beginning, they might want to understand her goals for pain relief. That helps them to put the right tools to work for her. When they know what types of pain she’s experiencing and where, they’re able to make better recommendations for her.
Working with Medical Providers to Formulate Plans
They’re also able to pass that information along to medical providers that work with your elderly family member. From there, it’s a lot easier for everyone participating in your senior’s medical care to formulate plans that are going to have a better chance of working for her. Faulty plans don’t do your senior any good at all.
Ensuring Everyone Has the Necessary Information to Make Decisions
Making decisions about your senior’s care and her pain management is not easy to do. That’s why end-of-life care professionals do everything that they can to help you and your senior to have the information you need to make the best choices possible. Informed decisions help you to see all of the options available and put the right answers to work.
Coordinating Techniques that Work for Your Senior
Once you and your senior have a better list of the things that are likely to work for her, your senior’s care team can then coordinate those techniques. Massage therapy, physical therapy, relaxation techniques, hot and cold therapies, and more can all be scheduled to give your senior the best results. As her needs change, those techniques may also change.
Your senior may never be fully pain-free, unfortunately, and that’s something that end-of-life care helps to manage as well. But working to get her pain as under control as possible helps your family member to have the best quality of life that she can have, boosts her mood, and can help her to avoid unnecessary trips to the hospital.