How can you care for someone with mesothelioma?
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If anyone in your family or friends have mesothelioma, you might be wondering how you can help the patient. The following tips will help you to care for your loved ones who are suffering from such a problem.
Create a support team
As a family member of someone who suffering from mesothelioma, you can help the patient by creating a support team. This may be the first step that you can take after the diagnosis. It may be too much for one person to do, which is required to take proper care of someone with the problem. A team of people will be able to offer better mesothelioma care to the patient, who suffering from mesothelioma. You can talk to the extended family, friends, community members and neighbours for the necessary support. It may also be necessary to coordinate meals, schedule appointments, transportation arrangement and other aspects of mesothelioma care.
Friends and family can help the patient with the household chores. They can also help by freeing up the primary caregivers so that they can also take some time off.
Consider all treatment options
After diagnosis of the problem, you need to consider all treatment options available for mesothelioma care. The standard treatment options include chemotherapy and radiation therapy. If the problem is detected at an early stage, surgery may be possible.
Clinical trial is another treatment option that you can explore. Such trials, maybe beneficial for you because they help the patients access new drugs and innovative treatments. Such treatments might work and the problem may be cured or contained. There may be some immunotherapy medicine available in such trials, which will shrink and control the tumours. They may also reduce the side effects of chemotherapy on the patient.
Focus on pulmonary care
People who are suffering from mesothelioma cancer, lung health is very important for them. Pulmonary symptoms are likely to change or worsen as the disease progresses. Symptoms like difficulty in breathing, coughing, breathlessness and pain with everything may be very common.
Medicines are available for such problems. There are pulmonary therapists, which can help the patient by making their lives comfortable. Medicines may be necessary a certain point of time to open airways so that the patient can breathe normally. Sometimes medicines for pain may be necessary for eliminating the pain caused by tumours. It may be necessary for the patients to learn breathing exercises and other techniques which can help them to improve their lung function.
Reduce side-effects of treatment
Depending on the treatment, there may be different side-effects that a mesothelioma patient may have to suffer from. In that case, as a person providing care for the patient, you can offer help by controlling the side effects of treatment and managing the symptoms. When you do that, the patient will be comfortable. If you see any side effects of the treatment or even if you see any new symptoms, you should immediately talk to the oncologist. Different types of therapies and medications are available which can help in reduction of the side-effects. But it is very important to attend to such side-effects and symptoms immediately.
If the patient undergoes surgery, fatigue, muscle weakness and generalised pain may show up after the surgery. Patients who undergo chemotherapy may suffer from fatigue, nausea or vomiting. In that case, medicines may be necessary, which can effectively prevent and treat chemotherapy related nausea. You should also explore the natural treatments for nausea and other search side-effects. If the patient suffers from skin irritation, topical ointment can help them to remove the irritation and feel comfortable.
References
1. Malignant Mesothelioma
2. Mesothelioma