Palliative Care Program

What Is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is specialized medical care for patients suffering from serious, life-limiting illness. Though it is often focused on providing relief from symptoms, the main goal is to improve quality of life for both patients and their families. This type of care looks different for each individual patient according to needs and can be administered by a variety of different healthcare providers.

Medical treatments and therapies are designed to relieve symptoms and treat disease. Treatments vary depending on the diagnosis and severity of a condition, but the end goal is the same – to cure the disease. Palliative care is typically provided at the same time as active treatment and acts as part of a patient’s long-term management plan.

Palliative care is administered by a network of specially trained physicians, nurses, and specialists who work together in each patient’s best interest. In addition to communicating with each other, these providers maintain close contact with patients to ensure they understand their treatment options and that their needs are met. Palliative care does more than just monitor medications and disease progression – it helps with the practical, emotional, social, and spiritual problems that having a life-limiting illness can cause.

Not only does palliative care benefit patients, it benefits physicians, too. Seriously ill patients often require complex pain and symptom management; they may also require more direct communication and education about their condition and treatment options. A physician can refer patients and their families to a palliative care specialist for additional support in meeting their needs, both medical and otherwise.

What Does Palliative Care Involve?

The primary goal of palliative care is pain relief and symptom management, but on a larger scale it involves making patients feel better in any way possible. Serious illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and dementia can affect more than just a patient’s body – they can affect mental and emotional wellbeing. Palliative care can address these effects in numerous ways.

The physical effects of life-limiting illness may include symptoms such as pain, trouble breathing, difficulty sleeping, and chronic fatigue. Treatments typically involve some combination of medication, nutritional guidance, physical or occupational therapy, and other integrative therapies. During such treatment, palliative care provides an added layer of support and ensures proper communication between physicians and patients to monitor and manage symptoms.

Living with a life-limiting illness can bring about extreme stress and often trigger feelings of fear, anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. Palliative care addresses these problems through counseling, support groups, family meetings, and referrals to mental health specialists. It can also help patients learn coping skills to better manage their condition(s).

Another aspect of palliative care involves addressing some of the practical issues that may arise due to serious illness. For example, palliative care can help patients with financial or legal issues related to their illness, resolve problems with work or health insurance, understand treatment options, or explain complex medical forms. Palliative care can also provide financial counseling, make any necessary referrals, and connect patients with resources for transportation, housing, and financial assistance.

How Does Palliative Care Differ from Hospice Care?

Palliative care is for the living, not the dying. Whereas hospice care begins after treatment for a disease has stopped and it becomes clear that a patient will not recover, palliative care can begin at diagnosis and continue through treatment. Hospice care includes palliative care but is generally reserved for terminally ill patients whose treatment is no longer curative – typically during their last six months of life. Palliative care can be part of a patient's long-term medical management plan while receiving active treatment.

Serious illness affects more than just the body – it affects every aspect of a patient’s life. Improving quality of life in the wake of life-limiting illness is about addressing the mental, emotional, social, and practical problems that arise because of a disease or illness, in addition to managing the condition itself. Palliative care not only ensures effective treatment, but improved quality of life on a larger scale.