The second Saturday in October is World Palliative Care Day, AIM found. A therapeutic modality little spread in the world, which seeks to help, support and improve the situation of terminal patients and their families, so that they can better face the departure of that loved one.
Theme 2022: Healing hearts and communities
Every year, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) establishes a main motto and develops a series of resources so that any association, organization or person can contribute to an event.
The theme for 2022 is “Healing hearts and communities”.
Palliative care, an essential right
Today, the World Health Organization has decreed that palliative care is an essential right for all people. However, 50% of the terminally ill around the world never receive it and 75% die with emotional pain.
In reality, palliative care therapy comprises a wide range of treatments, ranging from the supply of drugs to relieve the patient’s physical pain, to psychological treatment for him and his family, social work and a set of activities that allow him to enjoy in the best way his last moments in this world, given the circumstances.
But what is palliative care?
Palliative care is nothing new. They emerged during the Middle Ages, where they tried to give shelter and relief to the suffering of patients who later perished due to little development in health and the sanitary conditions of the time.
Later, around the year 1967, the first hospice that would accept people with terminal illnesses would appear in London. Its purpose was to provide physical and psychological support, both to patients and their families so that they could cope with grief. In addition, to carry out studies to find new treatments that could lengthen their life span or cure that disease in the future.
However, what we understand today as a hospice is not the same as a hospice. In a palliative care center, the estimated life time for the patient must exceed 6 months and also, there must be a very small probability that the disease will remit. On the other hand, a hospice is a place where there is no turning back and only seeks to provide the best care to the patient and her family nucleus so that they can accept the situation.
Why celebrate a day for palliative care?
The objective is to make people aware of this type of treatment and help them better cope with this type of circumstance.
Specialists in palliative care focus their attention on giving terminally ill patients a new vision of their situation, one in which they can focus on all the good things they sowed and on giving thanks to life, for having allowed them to enjoy it even for a short while. moment.
Another goal that specialists have is to help families prepare for the inevitable and better cope with loss. To do this, they subject the entire family group to psychological and social work therapies, closing any emotional process that is related to the patient.