Dissonance, Cathartic Chaos, and Suffering: Lessons in Staying from Mindfulness and the Humanities (P7)

Abstract

types of wounds, including venous, pressure, vascular, and malignant. 3. Understand how to control the problems of pain and odor in palliative wound care. The concept of palliation for chronic wounds is a relatively new concept within the past 10 years. Palliation recognizes and accepts nonhealing endpoints as appropriate care and uses nonhealing strategies to comfort patients and improve quality of life. There is no formal education on palliative wound care at this time, other than scattered individual lectures at various wound care symposia, and the annual palliative wound conference held for the past 4 years. There are many hospice caregivers who desire more information on specific treatments available and on approaches to the management of chronic wounds in terminally ill patients. Because 35% of end-of-life hospice patients will have a wound, it is paramount that hospice providers receive adequate training in palliative wound care. There is a tremendous need for knowledge and training, especially in hospice, for palliative wound care. The traditional goal of wound care is to heal or prepare for surgical closure, but techniques and procedures used to ‘‘heal’’ a wound can be painful or uncomfortable and very costly. It is inappropriate to ignore wounds or declare them untreatable in patients at the end of life. Palliative wound care requires a different mindset than traditional wound care, yet is based on the same fundamental scientific principles. This workshop presents an approach to palliation in wound care that involves being able to properly assess a wound and determine if palliation is appropriate, developing a comprehensive strategy for palliation of various types of wounds, and managing symptoms of chronic wounds, especially pain and odor. The many benefits of an effective palliative wound program, including improved quality of life and achieving the goal of healing the whole person, will be addressed. The emphasis will be on palliative wound care helping to achieve hospice goals for the patient.