Assignment 3 continued
There will be no assignment for submission for this course, but we will ask that you develop an advance care plan for a case study later on when we do the End-of-Life Care course. I would encourage you in the meantime to perhaps find a patient that you are currently caring for and /or supporting and use the information, tools and resources to complete an assessment and develop a holistic palliative care plan for the patient (include how you could support the family as well). Remember developing care plans takes practice so the more you develop the more proficient you become.
For those of you who would like to take this opportunity to practice drawing up care plan’s I have suggested using the simple case study from Dr. Justin Amery’s book, Children’s Palliative in Africa pg 93.
Children’s Palliative Care in Africa
Dr. Justin Amery
Pg 93
Case study:
Abigail is a 9-year-old girl with Burkitt’s Lymphoma. She presented to the ward with Spinal cord compression, causing paralysis of the lower limbs and urinary incontinence. Despite chemotherapy and steroids these have not resolved. She is still unable to control her bowels but is often constipated; her mother has been manually evacuating some hard stool this week. She is not able to walk and currently needs her mother with her to do everything; her mother carries her to places such as the toilet and the shop. She spends a lot of time lying on her bed and has got a pressure sore on each of her hips. Her mother is 8 months pregnant and carrying her is getting increasingly difficult. She is unable to get to school and is missing playing football with her friends which used to be her favourite thing to do. She has a good appetite but complains she is often hungry as when she is at the hospital her mother doesn’t have enough money to buy food. She is able to feed herself. She is able to communicate well, she hears well but is only able to see out of one eye as she had a tumour in the other one and the sight has not returned.
Assignment task:
Children’s Palliative Care in Africa
Dr. Justin Amery
Pg 93
Taking the information above develop a palliative care plan for Abigail keeping the following questions in mind:
◆ What is the problem list?
◆ Who else would you like to involve?
◆ What other information would you like to find out?