Supportive offers for patients and relatives

Sup­port­ive offers: What is it and why can it be help­ful in onco­log­i­cal diseases?

Sup­port­ive offers for patients and relatives

Gyne­co­log­i­cal can­cer and its treat­ment rais­es many ques­tions and usu­al­ly presents those affect­ed and their fam­i­lies with very chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions that have to be mas­tered. In such a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion, a sup­port­ive offer­ing in addi­tion to med­ical treat­ment can help.

A hos­pi­tal should offer patients and their rel­a­tives a wide range of sup­port­ive ser­vices in addi­tion to med­ical treat­ment. Because this should help in chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions to sup­port the course of ther­a­py and improve qual­i­ty of life and well-being.

The fol­low­ing sup­port­ive offers can be helpful:

Psy­cho-onco­log­i­cal counseling

Med­ical diag­nos­tics go hand in hand with the offer of accom­pa­ny­ing, psy­cho-onco­log­i­cal advice and sup­port. The diag­no­sis of can­cer is a heavy blow to any­one. The first hor­ror is usu­al­ly fol­lowed by emo­tion­al tur­moil: Should I have lived health­i­er?
Why was­n’t the dis­ease rec­og­nized ear­li­er? Do I still have a chance at all? All of these ques­tions are con­stant­ly in the mind of most of those affect­ed and trig­ger neg­a­tive feel­ings: anger at them­selves or at fate, fears about the next diag­nos­tic exam­i­na­tion, about side effects of the treat­ment or about the pro­gres­sion of the dis­ease, shame about the changed body. As the ill­ness pro­gress­es, mak­ing dif­fi­cult deci­sions, return­ing to work or oth­er sit­u­a­tions can be dif­fi­cult and stressful.

Nutri­tion­al advice

Nutri­tion­al ther­a­py (also called diet ther­a­py) com­pris­es all nutri­tion­al mea­sures to restore health and regain the patient’s abil­i­ty to act. Var­i­ous forms of inter­ven­tion are assigned to nutri­tion­al ther­a­py to ensure the indi­vid­ual ener­gy and nutri­ent require­ments of patients. Nutri­tion­al ther­a­py also pur­sues the goal of acti­vat­ing the indi­vid­ual and social resources of those affect­ed and their rel­a­tives in order to enable them to act inde­pen­dent­ly and appro­pri­ate­ly on nutrition.

Nutri­tion is the basis of life — both in the pre­ven­tion and in the med­ical ther­a­py of the respec­tive disease.

Weight loss is often the first sign of a malig­nant dis­ease. In the fur­ther course of med­ical treat­ment, the nutri­tion­al sta­tus itself has a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on the tol­er­a­bil­i­ty of the ther­a­py as well as on the course of the dis­ease and the prog­no­sis. Due to the ever-improv­ing can­cer ther­a­pies that enable longer sur­vival, nutri­tion­al ther­a­py is becom­ing increas­ing­ly important.

Pal­lia­tive care

Can­cer patients and their rel­a­tives are often con­front­ed with a vari­ety of phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, social and spir­i­tu­al bur­dens, which can be asso­ci­at­ed with a reduced qual­i­ty of life and reduced ther­a­peu­tic effects.

Com­pre­hen­sive onco­log­i­cal care there­fore includes, in addi­tion to pure­ly med­ical care, assis­tance with these often com­plex prob­lems. Ide­al­ly, this is done by a treat­ment team con­sist­ing of var­i­ous pro­fes­sion­al groups and dis­ci­plines. Espe­cial­ly when tumor dis­eases can­not be cured and the remain­ing life span will pre­sum­ably be lim­it­ed, addi­tion­al knowl­edge can be very help­ful. A spe­cial­ly trained per­cep­tion, will­ing­ness to lis­ten and exten­sive knowl­edge of the treat­ment options for com­plex com­plaints are just some of the nec­es­sary require­ments for com­pre­hen­sive pal­lia­tive care. These aspects of pal­lia­tive care need to be inte­grat­ed into onco­log­i­cal care in good time.

Pas­toral care

Hos­pi­tal pas­toral care is offered by the Protes­tant and Catholic Church­es. Full-time and vol­un­tary employ­ees will be hap­py to vis­it and accom­pa­ny you. Regard­less of reli­gious affil­i­a­tion, pas­tors will lis­ten to you and give you sup­port. Ill­ness and a stay in a clin­ic trig­ger a wide vari­ety of feel­ings and ques­tions. Pas­toral care is seen as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to address things that are cur­rent­ly impor­tant to you or your loved ones.

Rel­a­tives’ con­sul­ta­tion hour

In moments of ill­ness, hos­pi­tal stays and med­ical treat­ment, it is impor­tant for clin­ics to be able to give you com­pre­hen­sive advice, not only pro­fes­sion­al­ly but also per­son­al­ly. For this pur­pose, nurs­ing staff and doc­tors are on hand with advice and action on the wards, in the out­pa­tient depart­ments and in the oper­at­ing the­ater. You are the pri­ma­ry point of con­tact for your con­cerns and questions.

Social ser­vice

In addi­tion to the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal effects, seri­ous ill­ness­es can sig­nif­i­cant­ly change the per­son­al, social and pro­fes­sion­al sit­u­a­tion, which is accom­pa­nied by a vari­ety of ques­tions and chal­lenges. That is why the social ser­vice offers you pro­fes­sion­al, indi­vid­ual and neu­tral advice. The con­cern of the social ser­vice is to pro­vide patients and their rel­a­tives in all phas­es of the ill­ness with infor­ma­tion and sup­port options that can be help­ful in cop­ing with their ill­ness and its effects on every­day life and the per­son­al environment.

Com­ple­men­tary medicine

Many can­cer patients and their rel­a­tives often ask them­selves whether and what they can do in addi­tion to ongo­ing or already com­plet­ed onco­log­i­cal ther­a­py in order to opti­mal­ly sup­port body and soul in treat­ment and to main­tain health. Com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine rep­re­sents accom­pa­ny­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties that con­tribute to holis­tic care. These include nutri­tion­al advice, herbal med­i­cines, nat­ur­al heal­ing meth­ods, but also relax­ation meth­ods, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and much more. At this point it is impor­tant to us: Com­ple­men­tary med­i­cine is a sup­ple­ment, but not a sub­sti­tute for con­ven­tion­al med­i­cine — it is not an alter­na­tive medicine!

There are numer­ous offers at the women’s clin­ic at Char­ité Berlin. Sup­port­ive offers are avail­able to patients, regard­less of whether they are receiv­ing inpa­tient or out­pa­tient treat­ment. Patients can take part after reg­is­ter­ing. More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

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