Traveling Scholars Program Report
Emmanouil Trapalis, Mr.
Travel date: October 5, 2019
Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: One week educational Visit to “Our Ladies Hospice”
Origin: Sparta, Greece / Destination: Dublin, Ireland
How was this meeting/activity helpful to you?
I had the chance to closely observe the provision of palliative care by all professionals and most especially by the physiotherapists in all settings, e.g. home care, day center, day hospice, inpatient unit and long term facility, as well as the chance to see the special equipment used for physiotherapy.
This observation helped me identify and improve the common technics we also use in our Palliative Care Unit called “GALILEE”, mainly in respiratory management, enhancing technics for standing up and mobilization of patients and to get familiar with new ones, such as the aquatic physiotherapy and the technics for treating lymphedema.
How will you new knowledge & acquired skills help in furthering your work in hospice and palliative care in your program/city/ or country?
In cooperation with the Administration of the Palliative Care Unit I work for, we plan to create a dedicated space for physiotherapy, equipped with some of the special equipment I got familiar with in the Hospice in Dublin. Moreover, we will try some group physiotherapy activities in the Day Center and in this dedicated space, which will be a new service for our patients. Some new tools for assessing the needs of the patients and the results of the interventions will also be introduced in our daily practice. I will also propose some new sessions for the educational program of the interdisciplinary team, in which I participated during my visit in the Hospice in Dublin.
How IAHPC Traveling Scholars Program be improved in order to help other future traveling scholars?
No comment.
Narrative summary highlighting the needs and challanges you face
“GALILEE” Palliative Care Unit is the sole unit in Greece providing comprehensive palliative care services to adult patients. The services are addressed, free of charge, to cancer patient and patients with ALS. The Home Care team has been operating since 2010, the Day Care activities started in 2011 and in January 2018 the in-patient unit began to receive patients, coming from the whole region of Athens and its outskirts. Physiotherapy has been available to patients since 2013. Palliative Care is quite new service for Greece and one of the biggest challenges is to raise awareness to patients in need, to health care professionals, to the general public and to the State. We believe that one of the most powerful means for raising awareness and advocating is the quality of the services provided. The specific scholarship gave me the opportunity to learn from the experience and technics of the physiotherapists and other professionals working in “Our Ladies Hospice” and this knowledge will help me improve the quality of the services that we provide to our patients.