How to help manage symptoms with medicines at home

Transcript

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[Text on screen] Video 1 - How to help manage symptoms with medicines at home. caring@home.

>>Narrator (female voice over): In this video, we will show you how you can help keep a person comfortable with medicines at home.

People who are nearing the end of their lives can experience symptoms like pain or feeling sick with nausea.

There are many things that you can do to help the person.  Your nurse will teach you what to do and give you a tip sheet with ideas.

Giving medicine under the skin is often the best way to make them feel better, if they are looking uncomfortable, distressed, or behaving differently.

[Text on screen] Step 1 - What symptom?

>>Narrator (female voice over): The first step is to work out what is bothering them. The best way is to ask them.

Sometimes though, they may not be able to tell you how they feel.

Your nurse will teach you how to notice other signs to look for to tell you if they are uncomfortable or in distress.

The nurse will help you by giving you tip sheets to explain what to look for.

The person may have more than one symptom at the same time, for example shortness of breath and anxiety.

You may also notice signs of other symptoms – talk to your nurse about this.

[Text on screen] Step 2 - How distressing is it?

>>Narrator (female voice over): The next step is to ask the person how distressing the symptom is.

You can use the rating scale to help. It has numbers and faces on it.

The numbers go from zero to ten. Zero means the symptom is not distressing at all and ten means it is the worst distress possible.

You can ask the person to look at the scale and pick the number that matches how they feel.

The faces can be used to help them make the decision.

If your person cannot tell you how they feel, trust your own judgement, and rate the symptom for the person.

[Text on screen]Step 3 - What medicine?

>>Narrator (female voice over): If they need medicine, the next step is to work out which medicine to give.

[Text on screen] Step 4 - Give the medicine

>>Narrator (female voice over): The nurse will teach you about each medicine and what symptom it is helpful for.

The wall chart and the medicine labels will also help you to remember and become more confident.

After you know which is the right medicine, you can give it to the person.

The nurse will teach you how to do this and the steps are shown in videos 2 and 3.

[Text on screen] Step 5 - Fill in the Medicines Diary

>>Narrator (female voice over): It is important that when you give medicine, that you fill in the Medicines Diary.

The Medicines diary allows you to keep track of the medicine you give to the person.

It also allows you and the nurse to talk about the medicine used and how well it is working.

When you give medicine, write in the medicines diary

• the date
• the time
• the medicine given – you can use the medicine label if it is easier
• and the number on the rating scale.

[Text on screen] Step 6 - Wait 20 minutes

>>Narrator (female voice over): Then wait 20 minutes and check the person again.

[Text on screen] Step 7 - Fill in the Medicines Diary

>>Narrator (female voice over): Fill in the Medicines diary again by writing the new number that matches how the person feels.

This will tell you if the medicine has helped.

If the person does not seem to be more comfortable, please call the nurse.

[Text on screen] caring@home. caringathomeproject.com.au

caring@home is funded by the Australian Government and led by Brisbane South Palliative Care Collaborative

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