Hospice care is an important part of palliative care. Hospice provides comfort and support to people with a life-limiting illness, as well as their family members, caregivers and loved ones.
The goal of palliative care is to improve quality of life for patients nearing their end-of-life journey by providing symptom and pain management, emotional and psychological support, spiritual guidance and other services that help patients live their remaining days in peace with dignity.
Pain and Symptom Management
Palliative care is an approach that focuses on improving quality of life. Pain and symptom management are central to palliative care and should be a priority for patients.
Palliative care works by addressing the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of people with serious illnesses such as cancer.
The goal is to help you live as fully as possible while you're experiencing symptoms like pain or fatigue--and it's important to know that there are many different kinds of treatment options available that can help manage these symptoms so they don't get in the way of enjoying life.
Emotional and Psychological Support
Emotional and psychological support is an important part of palliative care. This includes:
- Support for patients and their families, including siblings, children and grandchildren.
- Support for friends.
- Community-based programs that help people access the services they need such as transportation or meals delivered to their homes when they are unable to leave them due to illness or disability.
Enhancing Quality of Life
Palliative care can help people live longer and better, even if they have a chronic illness or serious illness. Palliative care is provided in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and home settings. It involves addressing your symptoms (pain) as well as improving your quality of life.
Palliative care focuses on improving comfort rather than treating an underlying disease or condition. This means that palliative care is appropriate for anyone whose health outlook is likely to be limited--not just those who are terminally ill with cancer or another life-threatening illness.
Care Coordination and Continuity
Palliative care is a team approach to the management of symptoms and pain in patients with life-threatening illness. It can be used at any stage of a serious illness, from diagnosis through end of life.
Palliative Care Teams include physicians, nurses, social workers and other professionals who work together to help people live with dignity as they face their illnesses.
The goal of palliative care is not just to make someone die comfortably but also to improve quality of life by addressing symptoms such as pain; depression or anxiety; shortness of breath; nausea or vomiting; constipation/diarrhea; fatigue (feeling weak all the time); insomnia (not being able to sleep well).
Conclusion
The role of palliative care is to provide comfort, quality of life and care coordination for people with serious illness. While this may not be the right approach for everyone, it is important that we have options when facing a terminal diagnosis or long-term condition.
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