Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses. It focuses on providing people with relief from the symptoms, pain and stress of a serious illness -- whatever the diagnosis. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the person who is ill and the family. Palliative care can help you do the following:
- manage your symptoms and treat sources of discomfort for any reason
- maintain or improve your quality of life
- achieve emotional, mental, and/or spiritual well-being
- communicate with the care team about how best to care for you
- navigate making difficult medical decisions
- be more proactive in getting the type of care you seek
- handle other practical matters related to your illness such as finding resources for care or planning ahead
- support your family or those caring for you to help them maintain health and wellness
Palliative care is provided by a team of doctors, nurses, professional healthcare chaplains, and other specialists who work together with a person's other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness and can be provided along with curative treatment.
Palliative treatments can be given any time there is a difficult symptom to deal with. Doctors will always attempt to cure and control illness. In other words, curative care is provided no matter what. In the past, doctors used palliative care only after getting to the point where they would have to announce, “there is nothing more we can do.” However, healthcare has improved and now palliative treatment can be offered along with curative treatments to help get through the difficult symptoms.
Eligibility and appropriateness for palliative care is based on need and not prognosis. It is appropriate for people pursuing cure (for example, head and neck cancer or acute myeloid leukemia); living with long-term chronic but debilitating illness like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), dementia or congestive heart failure; and approaching the end of life as a result of a progressive disease. People can be receiving both curative chemotherapy and palliative care.
The essence of palliative care is understanding who the person is and what matters most to that person. This -- the search for meaning -- is also the essence of spiritual care.
