Physiotherapy in palliative care– - Stockholms sjukhem

functioning. She also has pain in her neck and in the left shoulder. She is used to exercising andfeels that she has a hard time exercising as usual as her body does not obey her and shebecomes breathless very quickly. She has a wish to exercise but needs to get her exerciseprogram adapted to her new physical condition.Suggest the physiotherapeutic goal for the patient. What kind of exercises could be useful? Howcan she be helped with her lymph edema? What could be the reason for her pain? Is there aneed for more investigation of her pain? What kind of treatment for her pain would be useful totry?FinallyPhysiotherapeutic palliative care is by necessity focused on the body. For a person in the mostproblematic time of life, just before leaving life, it is painfully clear how important the body is.Movement is a symbol of life and maybe it is the most important time to move when one is nolonger able to, to feel that one is still alive and get confirmation that one still belongs to life.Today it is essential to have a rehabilitative approach as people live longer, but often withfunctions reduced due to treatment. Physiotherapists have - with their specific competence - atask to prevent, examine and treat functional barriers that limit or threaten to limit the humanmovement. By facilitating the patient to keep or improve functions or through technical aids theindependence and the quality of life of the patient can improve, in all stages of life.Please note that the physiotherapist’s symptom relief and activating treatments have very fewside effects!The exercises and physical activities that the physiotherapist offers resemble life when thepatient was still healthy. This gives the patients some breathing-space, pausing from thoughts ofillness and death - an important rest for the patient and a possibility to recuperate.Physiotherapists must always strive to base treatments on best available knowledge. Theexisting evidence for different physiotherapeutic treatment methods are in some areas notsufficient and in palliative care few studies have been carried out. This does not mean that thetreatment is useless but that there is a need for more research in this area.Physiotherapy in palliative care – a clinical handbook Ulla Frymark, Lilian Hallgren, Ann‐Charlotte Reisberg 32