When to Call in Palliative Care: Four Essential Tips / Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of dementia care? Do you find yourself wishing you had more support navigating medical decisions and planning for the future? You’re not alone - and there’s specialized help available that many caregivers don’t fully understand.

We are Sue Ryan and Nancy Treaster. As caregivers for our loved ones with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, we both wish we had understood what palliative care is and how to leverage it earlier in our journeys. Unfortunately, when palliative care was first explained to us, it was explained incorrectly, and neither of us took advantage of all the great things palliative care has to offer.

We recently spoke with Dawn Kolderman, a registered nurse and Senior Clinical Director of Palliative Care Services at Avow, who has more than 30 years of nursing experience with the last 20 focused on palliative and hospice care. Dawn shared invaluable insights about palliative care that we wish we had known sooner.

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Full Show Notes

Additional Resources Mentioned

• Avow Palliative Care Link
• Support the nonprofit The Caregiver's Journey: https://give.cornerstone.cc/thecaregiversjourney

Takeaways

Tip 1: Understand What Palliative Care Actually Is

The first step is clearing up common misconceptions about palliative care. 

Palliative care is a holistic approach to a life-limiting disease. This includes dementia — which is indeed a life-limiting disease. 

The key difference between palliative care and hospice care:

• Palliative care patients are at the beginning of their journey and are still seeking aggressive, curative treatment while seeing all their providers and specialists
• Hospice care patients are generally at the end of their journey, no longer seeking aggressive treatment, and focusing on comfort care.

Palliative care is an additional supportive layer of care that works collaboratively with all your existing medical providers. Most importantly, palliative care focuses heavily on the caregiver.

Tip 2: Call Palliative Care In — Here’s How

Many caregivers don’t realize how accessible palliative care is or when to call it in. The answer is simple: the earlier, the better.

Tip 3: Understand the Goals of Palliative Care

Palliative care has specific, comprehensive goals that address both immediate and long-term needs.

Primary goals include:

Relieving physical symptoms first

Supporting the caregiver and family

Education and collaboration

Advanced care planning (ACP). This crucial component involves sitting down with the patient, caregiver, and family to discuss important decisions while your loved one can still participate in these conversations.

Tip 4: What Else You Need to Know About Palliative Care

There are several important aspects of palliative care that many people don’t realize.

Your loved one won’t look sick. The goal is to help them live their life fully.

Early intervention builds s