Discover How Home Health Care Services Help Cancer Patients
The first Sunday in June marks National Cancer Survivor’s Day. It’s a day to celebrate life after a cancer diagnosis. Cancer is scary, but today’s treatments and research make it easier to fight cancer and win.
When your mom or dad hears they have cancer, it’s time to talk about the benefits of home health care services. While they’re undergoing treatments, nurses can make a big difference in their recovery. Here are the many ways home health care nurses help out.
Recording Vital Signs
Home Health Care Chester, PA: National Cancer Survivor’s Day
While your mom or dad battles cancer, regular blood pressure checks, weight, pulse, and oxygen saturation are common. Instead of traveling to a clinic or medical office to get these readings, your parent’s home health care nurse can take the readings at home and record them for the doctor.
Wound Care
With many cancers, surgical removal of the tumor is part of the treatment plan. Caring for the incisions requires skill. You don’t want your mom or dad to develop an infection when the immune system is already busy fighting the cancerous cells.
With wound care, a nurse will change bandages, make sure the incision is sterilized, and replace bandages. If an infection starts, the nurse relays information to the doctors and can administer IV antibiotics.
Physical Therapy
What if cancer requires the removal of part of a limb? If your mom’s doctor determines she has bone cancer and amputation is required. She’ll need physical therapy to learn how to become mobile while using crutches and a prosthesis.
Rather than having to go to a physical therapist’s office several days a week, your mom could have the physical therapist come to her home. With this personalized home health care service, most patients are mobile in just a few months.
Infusion Therapy
Your dad is in a lot of pain. He doesn’t want to be in a hospital for weeks while battling his cancer. With home health care services, he could have a nurse in his home administering pain medications through a needle or IV.
Some doctors allow infusion chemotherapy treatments to take place at home. Your dad will be more comfortable if he’s in his favorite chair or bedroom. Nurses can come set up the IV and monitor him during the treatment.
Research finds that many patients thrive when they’re in the most comfortable environment for their cancer battle. That’s a key reason to discuss having your mom or dad at home as much as possible.
Make arrangements with a home health care agency. Talk about the cancer diagnosis and the treatment plan. From there, the specialist you’re talking to will help you come up with a treatment plan that meets your parent’s needs.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Home Health Care in Chester, PA please contact the caring staff at True Direct Home Health Care today.
Doc, as he is called by everyone - staff, patients and clients - first experienced home health care and hospice care while as a colleg student at King's College as he cared for his mother every day while she first battled COPD and then lung cancer. It was during this time that he came to understand that caring for a patient was more than just clinical expertise.
"Admittedly, my strongest attribute is my communication skills and the simple fact that I love to help people. Even the smallest thing you can do for someone really can mean so much to them long term. In fact, it could change them forever. That's what providing quality personal home health care should be all about."
In his spare time, he cooks for homeless shelters and children's music and arts events. He also is highly involved in his local youth sports soccer academy as a coach and Board member.
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