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CANSA and Partners Help Manage Pain

#CANSAAtHomePainGuides #CANSACares #MyCareMyComfort

In October, the spotlight is usually placed on palliative care as part of World Hospice and Palliative Care Day, promoting awareness regarding caring of patients and their families facing challenges associated with life-threatening illness.

CANSA and partners are happy to announce the release of two booklets, the ‘CANSA At Home Pain Guide’ and the ‘CANSA At Home Guide for Children with Pain’ to help patients, loved ones, families and caregivers to cope with pain management.

The booklets cover pain management for adults and children in a user-friendly manner that helps simplify a normally complicated process. It presents a mixture of diagrams, pain identification charts and simple text and images to guide patients and others through the understanding and management of pain. The aim is to further translate the guide into different languages making it accessible to many more communities.

CANSA collaborated with partners, The Association of Palliative Care Practitioners of South Africa (PALPRAC), Umduduzi Children’s Hospice and Patch, who are experts in the field to create these useful booklets. The partners were eager to get on board and contribute their expertise to make these booklets a reality.

CANSA plays an important role, in educating and advising family members and caregivers of cancer patients on how to help manage a patient’s pain in the home.

In 2020, cancer patients should not be in pain.

Managing pain effectively throughout treatment and at the end of life will ensure that cancer patients have a less traumatic experience and a good quality of life. This also reduces the distress experienced by loved ones who feel helpless when they are uninformed on how to help manage their loved one’s pain.

How CANSA Helps

CANSA also offers home-based care services to cancer patients at a reduced cost, or through medical aid. This service is running in Gauteng with plans to roll out in the Western Cape and Free State at the end of the year. Contact Adele Burger at aburger@cansa.org.za for more information.

For those that are unable to care for their family members or loved one at home, CANSA has 12 CANSA Care Rooms around the country with two new Rooms being launched during the course of October, to help provide respite to family caregivers.

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