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It's vitally important, I think, that people really access
the services that are there for you because, you know, I think
we used most of them and they just made the journey that much easier.
Social workers can help in two different ways.
The first being your emotional and psychological well-being.
They can provide counselling in relation to adjustment,
in relation to grief and loss.
And they're able to provide more practical assistance as well.
The occupational therapists come
and put all these bars and everything around for me.
So, really I can manage in the house extremely good.
Occupational therapists are professionals who can assist
in supporting you to manage day to day tasks more easily.
What they're looking for is to make things as easy as possible for you
to continue doing as much normal activity as you can in your home.
Push down here, put your bottom in first before your feet and
then swivel in like so.
I've got a chair that I sit on to have a shower,
which is very comfortable.
It's like one of those chairs that you have in your backyard.
They said with the frame, I can manage.
See, I can walk as good as gold with the frame.
Physiotherapists aim to maximise your physical condition.
They can work with you before, during or after hospital, be it during
treatment or after you've been in hospital for a short period of time.
They'll work with you around perhaps an exercise program to get you moving
as best you can.
The other area they might be able to help is if you're feeling quite
breathless, they may be able to assist you in trying different
techniques, breathing in a different way.
Dieticians are able to work
with you around what your previous eating habits were and look at what
might be affecting your desire to eat or the way that you eat.
They can work with you around a plan
to see whether there are some different things that you could do
that might increase your nutrition or change your level of nutrition
and they'll do this in conjunction with you throughout your treatment.
Pastoral care workers are health professionals, who may be able to
assist you if you have spiritual concerns. They're someone you can
talk to and share your story with and perhaps make some meaning out
of the experience that you're going through.
Yeah, seeing a psych for, on and off for probably, I don't know,
six to eight months. I go and have a yack to her about things and...
People with lung cancer can feel a number of symptoms
that we've discussed earlier like the physical symptoms.
But parallel or in addition to that, they can also feel
a number of emotional
symptoms that can be quite distressing to them and to
their family.
And talking about those or being aware of them, we can explore with
the patient together as a team what they would like to do about that.
And things I'm talking about is referring people who are anxious or
depressed to people on our team, who've got good skills at talking
and helping people understand why they are feeling the way they are.
And importantly again,
giving them little tricks that they can manage themselves to help them
stay on top of or in control of this very distressing time in their lives.
And the people I'm referring to our psychologists and psychiatrists,
which we know are very important part of our multidisciplinary team.