What is

Palliative Care?

Palliative Care is specialized medical care for people with serious terminal illness. This type of care focuses on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the resident and the family.

Palliative Care Approach

Maplewood Palliative Care is a collaborative approach to care. The core support includes medical providers, nurses, social worker, support and care staff. In addition there is a palliative care resource group that monitors situation awareness, re-enforces plans in place, assesses progress toward the care goals and the need to adjust the plan, and provides suggestions and feedback to the care staff who provide day to day care and support for the resident and family.

The Maplewood Approach

A partnership collaboration with the resident, family, staff and medical providers at The Maplewood

Physical Comfort

The palliative care approach will identify sources of pain and discomfort. These may include problems with nausea, loss of appetite, shortness of breath, restlessness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, insomnia and pain. The approach includes providing treatments that can offer relief.

Communication and Coordination

The palliative care approach puts great importance on communication between the resident, family, clinical staff and medical providers in order to ensure that the needs of the patient and family are fully met. These needs often include establishing goals of care, help with decision making and coordination of care.

Emotional and Spiritual Support

The palliative care approach focuses on the entire person and addresses social, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs.

Family and Caregiver Support

The palliative care approach provides emotional support for family members by encouraging open discussion and expression of emotional, spiritual and cultural needs. Additional support may also include collaborating with and utilizing community resources.

The Maplewood Palliative Care approach seeks to maximize quality of life for the resident. Care plans focus on attention to symptom management, emotional and spiritual well-being and commitment to education while also providing ongoing support for the extended family.