End Of Life: Helping With Comfort And Care

Course overview

End-of-life care is the term used to describe the support and medical care given during the time surrounding death. Such care does not happen just in the moments before breathing finally stops and a heart ceases to beat. An older person is often living, and dying, with one or more chronic illnesses and needs a lot of care for days, weeks, and sometimes even months. Generally speaking, people who are dying need care in four areas?physical comfort, mental and emotional needs, spiritual issues, and practical tasks. This course is intended to make the unfamiliar territory of death slightly more comfortable for everyone involved. This publication is based on research, such as that supported by the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health. This research base is augmented with suggestions from practitioners with expertise in helping individuals and families through this difficult time. Throughout the booklet, the terms comfort care, supportive care, and palliative care are used to describe individualized care that can provide a dying person the best quality of life until the end.