Chennai: Adapting to life after a surgery brings a lot of changes to a patient’s lifestyle emotionally, physically and mentally. Modifications to the patient’s routine -post-surgery is inevitable and requires a lot of care especially when the surgery involved is with respect to cancers like colorectalor any other bowel cancer.
Surgery for colorectal cancer is very often associated with ostomy surgeries. Colorectal cancer survivors undergo anostomy surgery during their treatment for the cancer, where creating anexternalsurgical opening for waste to pass through become important.
Post an Ostomy procedure, long-term adjustments become a part of their life and survivors need to avail healthcare facilities to cope better. An upheaval in the mental wellbeing in such cases involves, the patient trying to overcome the stigma around the use of pouch for their waste, low self-esteem, skin inflammation, the kind of clothes to wear, worry about the odour while emptying the pouch, eating the right kind of food, and the need for social support.
Some of the challenges attached to patients who undergo an ostomy surgery are — lack of awareness about the conditions that require a surgery, precautions that have to be taken post- surgery, lack of information on various care options, lack of availability of the right ostomy pouching system for their condition that can help ease the pain – physically post-surgery.
According to medical professionals,ostomy surgeries are life-saving procedures, and by using the right product for care, recuperating from such kinds of surgeries will be relatively easier forthe patient. There has also been a constant innovation in the product technology like the development of mouldable wafers where patients do not have to cut and fit the wafer every time. This leads to better patient experience. Over the years, it has become extremely crucial for healthcare providers to digitalise their services with the help of analytical tools.