What Is Palliative Care

Are you or someone you love struggling with a serious or life-threatening illness? Do you need relief from the pain and the stress?

The primary doctor may be treating the illness, but you and your family may also need someone to treat your whole self as you're fighting this illness. Palliative care may be what you need.

Palliative care is a team-oriented multidisciplinary plan of care for people suffering serious illnesses to help relieve the patient's pain and stress – whatever the diagnosis. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

The key to palliative care is to make the patient comfortable and maintain a certain quality of life for the patient. By taking care of the patient's physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs, a palliative care team can handle the symptoms of the disease and help you with your symptoms of pain, stress and anxiety.

This form of care relies on a team of professionals—physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, pastoral counselors and therapists—to implement. As the patient receives palliative care—it can be administered in the home or in the hospital—he or she can expect alleviation of the symptoms of disease, such as pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite and difficulty sleeping. This coordination of services can help the patient carry on with daily life and help tolerate medical treatments.

Patients receiving treatments for cancer, cardiac disease such as Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), kidney failure, Alzheimer's, HIV/AIDS and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) can all benefit from palliative care.

The care team will spend as much time is necessary for the patient and his family. A key component of the care is that the team will help you to understand your treatment options and goals. The patient and family will have time for close communication with the team. The team, in turn, will manage pain and other symptoms and help the family navigate the healthcare system and choices that lay before them.

Palliative care is available to patients at any time during their illness. Patients are not asked to choose between treatment that might cure their disease and comfort care. Palliative care is part of hospice care – but hospice programs are defined as end-of-life care programs. Patients receiving palliative care may live for quite a long time or be cured of their ailments.

If you or a loved one is suffering with a life-threatening illness, and are receiving little relief as you receive treatment, consider palliative care as an option.

Resource: Center to Advance Palliative Care