Listen and watch on-demand here.
Recorded:
June 29, 2022
Featured Presenter:
Andrew E. Esch, MD, MBA
Webinar Description:
If you or a loved one are living with a serious illness, this may include feeling easily tired, unable to do everyday tasks, or stay focused. You may feel weak or even forgetful. Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms in people with a serious illness, but it is often not recognized by doctors.
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For 50 years—three years of courtship and 47 years of marriage—Barbara and Laren of Atlanta have always struck the perfect balance. Barbara, the retired nurse and eternal optimist, is a bubbly dreamer who loves spending her free time in her garden so she can “hold mother nature’s hand.” Laren, the scientist and down-to-earth realist, is guided by practicality and a strict adherence to facts and numbers. Yet ever since the two met riding bikes while in college, they’ve been inseparable.
“We are very different people but it’s always just worked for us,” says Barbara. “Laren is the calm and patient one,” she adds through laughter.
Barbara has always been her family’s rock. While raising four highly-accomplished children or helping Laren deal with the struggles of his heart condition, Barbara has always been there standing strong. But more than two years ago, Barbara was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and seemingly out of nowhere, the couple’s lives flipped upside down.
Looking for palliative care in your area? Here’s good news: GetPalliativeCare.org has just launched its new, expanded Palliative Care Provider Directory for patients with serious illness, their families, friends and caregivers. The new Provider Directory is specifically designed for users to identify and locate palliative care providers in their area, quickly and easily, in both hospital and community-based settings.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. Palliative care is provided by a specially-trained team of doctors, nurses and other specialists who work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment.
Because of the growth, availability of, and demand for palliative care services beyond the hospital, the new Palliative Care Provider Directory lets users search for palliative care based on the setting where they can get the care: Hospital, Home, Nursing Home and Office/Clinic.
Along with the Provider Directory, the website has also been refreshed and relaunched. GetPalliativeCare.org is now easier to navigate and provides improved features such as webinars, briefings and multimedia presentations.
The Palliative Care Provider Directory is available at GetPalliativeCare.Org, CAPC’s online resource for patients and families. The website focuses solely on providing information on palliative care from the point of diagnosis.
When your loved ones are living with a serious illness, you won’t let them tackle the obstacles alone. Their struggles are your struggles. Their pain is your pain. Their fears are your fears. You listen to them, care for them, and walk their disease journey with them. You’re their rock on the days when everything seems too difficult to handle. You’re there to help them in any way you can.
But who helps you?
Many patients facing serious illness say that some of the most difficult things to deal with are pain, stress and a loss of control. This is because an illness like cancer, COPD, kidney disease or ALS can make an independent person feel helpless for the first time in their lives.
If you or a loved one are living with Alzheimer’s Disease or another form of dementia, you know you are facing a difficult road ahead. The disease begins with memory loss, confusion and trouble making decisions, and gets worse over time, eventually affecting basic control over the body. But with the help of a medical specialty called palliative care, there is a lot that can be done to make people living with dementia more comfortable and reduce their distress.
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