Extra Help For Tough Diseases Springpoint’s Assisted Living and

Aging is inevitable. Growing old is not.

We have one-of-a-kind senior services for one-of-a-kind seniors. The James and Sharon Maida Geriatrics Institute

provides seniors with comprehensive in-patient and outpatient geriatric services all under one roof. To learn more, call 732-886-4700 or visit

rwjbh.org/monmouthgeriatrics

Let’s age better together.

22697411 MMCSC DistantGeriatric_4.625x3.85_m1.indd 1Extra Help For Tough Diseases 10/20/21 9:41 AM

Have a serious diagnosis? Palliative care can help answer big questions, improve quality of life and more.

Receiving a potentially life threatening diagnosis can trigger fear, stress, depression and deep questions of meaning, not to mention many uncertainties about treatments, their benefits and their drawbacks. But no one has to face these trials alone.

“A member of our palliative care team can sit with a patient and family, listen to their concerns and priorities, help them have difficult conversations about their plan of care, guide them through all the what-ifs and support them physically, emotionally and spiritually,” says Claire Verruni, RN, CHPN, a nurse educator with the Community Health and Social Impact and Community Investment team at Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus (MMCSC).

Palliative care services are available and appropriate early in the course of a serious illness such as cancer, heart failure, kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or neurologic disorders such as Parkinson’s or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

“People hear ‘palliative’ and think it equals ‘hospice,’ but they’re not the same thing,” says Melanie