Services
Our multi-professional team supports you with specially trained physicians and nursing professionals through the following services:
Services eligibility
We care for patients with severe symptoms and complex care needs with a 24-hour on-call service. Our goal is to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. When the health situation stabilizes, we must pause our care as an outpatient palliative team.
Here you can learn more about the Cost coverage for insured individuals.
Basic services
- Regular home visits in close consultation, at short notice in case for acute problems
- Symptom control with prompt treatment of discomfort
- 24/7 availability for patients and family members in times of crisis
- Adjustment of medication plans according to the current symptoms, coordination with the primary care physician, and communication with the nursing staff
- Training of family caregivers by highly qualified nursing staff
- Consultation for goal-setting of therapy and the appropriateness of further treatment
- Implementation of the patient's advance directive (or living will)
- Recommendation for further support options, such as home care or hospice services
- Organization of the provision of medical aids
Naturopathy
The prerequisite for this is first a detailed conversation to get to know you. In the next step, we develop a suitable therapy offer for you. Several holistic options are available to us.
We are pleased to use the power of homeopathy, which takes into account not only physical complaints, but also mental and emotional states. The appropriate remedy for you contains active ingredients from the plant, animal, or mineral kingdom.
Phytotherapy (herbal medicine) offers a wide range of treatments today. Many successfully used medications contain components of plant origin.
Acupuncture (mainly ear acupuncture) can be used to alleviate pain or release mental blocks and anxieties. Acupuncture brings life energy back into flow and thus restores the body to its natural balance.
We complement our range of services with further naturopathy therapy options.
Each treatment plan is individually tailored to your situation and discussed with you in detail.
Psycho-oncology
My offering as part of our multi-professional team is relationship work in an existentially difficult situation - whenever questions, problems, and thoughts go beyond medical and nursing measures.
The focus is on improving the quality of life by establishing a trusting, honest communication with the patient and relatives about their needs and wishes.
My supportive approach focuses on personal coping strategies and individual resources when burdens such as special life circumstances, conflicts with close loved ones, shaken sense of life, concern for family members, etc. can no longer be borne alone. Time for personal attention is the most important building block on which the relationship with the patient is formed.
For patients who want to deal with their own life history in the context of their serious illness, I offer the creation of a "life arc" as part of Dignity-Centered Therapy (DCT). This approach is aimed at patients who are struggling with existential questions about the meaning of life in general, as well as about the personal meaning of their own lives, and who want to take the time to look back, but also to look forward.
This involves carefully guided biography work under the aspect of "honoring life and appreciating one's own life achievements", at the end of which a life arc is created that records significant aspects of the patient's own life, for the patient and the reference persons named in the document, serving as a source of strength.
Spiritual Care
Spiritual Care is another important pillar in the context of palliative care, in addition to medical, nursing, social, and psychological care.
It specifically addresses the concept of "total pain," which includes pain that is caused by emotional distress when the burden of life becomes too heavy to bear alone.
- Do you have questions about destiny, belonging, self-worth?
- What beliefs and rituals give you strength?
- What burdens are you carrying?
- Where do I come from, why am I here?
- Where am I going?
- Why me?
I want to discuss these questions of meaning with you and show you ways to create resources that will make it easier for you to cope with your illness.
"Spiritual Care is a scientific discipline that lies at the intersection of medicine, theology, and hospital chaplaincy," according to the definition provided by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Spiritual Care also involves an interdisciplinary, empathetic attitude that is transparent and accepting of all people, combined with a passionate presence in the here and now.
If you would like to take advantage of this support or are curious to know more, please speak to our team.
Pastoral guidance
Courage to hope and believe
We have encouraged you to ask questions about your illness and treatment and to make therapy decisions together with the doctors.
But we also want to encourage you to hope, regardless of how good or bad your diagnosis and prognosis may be.
A miracle cannot be "made", but we can and should hope for it. People who have a connection to faith can also pray for it.
Accompaniment in faith
In the face of a potentially life-threatening illness, things in daily life that were previously important lose their significance and aspects of life that were previously not so important gain importance.
A changing body and limited life forces also present new challenges for the mind. Spiritual guidance and pastoral care support the search for an individual or a common path in this crisis. When words fail to express thoughts and feelings, symbols can sometimes help as a bridge across speechlessness. In dialogue, the search for how to express personal concerns is shaped. When the previously unspeakable is named, a change in perspective often occurs, allowing for the integration of the new life situation and the formulation of personal expectations for the future.
People who feel connected to a religious community are accompanied in their religious tradition. People with other worldviews are offered an open conversation in search of personal sources of strength.
Accompanying children and adolescents as family members
- What can we say to them and how will they react?
- What are we allowed to say, what can we say to you, and how will they react?
- Should we involve them or keep them out of the line of fire?
Parents often feel great uncertainty about how much information children really need about a parent or grandparent's illness and what will help them cope with this difficult situation.
My offer includes not only working with your children but also providing informative conversations with you as parents. Addressing certain topics provides relief, and I provide assistance and suggestions on how to help your small community gain firmer footing together.
The younger the children, the more perceptive they are. They sense so much and strive to adapt to avoid being an additional burden on their parents. Through playful experiences, I encourage them to express their feelings. At the same time, I create space for the development of new possibilities for action.
In addition to painting, crafts, reading and storytelling, I use imagination techniques. Children are given the opportunity to use and develop their imagination to cope with difficult situations. Examples include contacting their personal wizard or animal friend.
Older children and adolescents require different forms of assistance. In joint conversations, they have the opportunity to discover their own strength and develop coping strategies for dealing with illness. This is about being seen as a person. Our conversations support personal development despite the inhibiting and threatening external situation.
Dear parents, I encourage you to involve your children and I am happy to support and accompany you.
Cost coverage
In 2007, the legislature decided that the costs for SAPV (Specialized Outpatient Palliative Care) will be covered by health insurance for all statutory insured persons. For private patients, health insurance reserves the right to conduct an individual case review, but generally follows benefits provided by the statutory health insurers.
Unfortunately, insurance companies only cover the work of two professional groups - palliative care nurses and palliative care physicians. Other therapy options that enable us to provide holistic care for the patient - such as psychological support, homeopathy, spiritual support, and pastoral care - are financed solely by donations. If you would like to support us with a donation, you will greatly help to ensure our continued multi-professionalism. We all thank you very much in advance!
We look forward to being able to accompany you in a professional manner - always with one goal in mind: to provide the best possible quality of life for all those affected!
Opening hours
Mon - Fri: 08:00 - 16:00
Sat - Sun: Emergencies only
Address
Palliativteam Hochtaunus GmbH, Daimlerstraße 12,
61352 Bad Homburg