What is Palliative Care?
Palliative Care is specialized care for people with serious or life-limiting illnesses. By working with the patient’s physicians and caregivers, the Palliative Care teams focus on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness. The goal of Palliative Care is to improve the patient’s and family’s quality of life by providing an extra layer of support through a team of specially trained doctors, nurses and other specialists.
Palliative Care is appropriate at any stage of a serious illness and can be provided as the main goal of care or along with curative treatment. Palliative Care can be provided across multiple settings, such as the patient’s home, skilled nursing facility, assisted living facility, hospital or most any other place a patient resides. Our Palliative Care teams provide symptom management, psycho-social, and spiritual support.
Palliative Care is a tremendous benefit to many patients in our communities.
When Is It Time?
While hospice patients must be diagnosed with a terminal illness with a time limited prognosis and generally forgo life-prolonging treatments, Palliative Care patients do not face such time limitations and can qualify for care if they have a chronic, acute, life-limiting or terminal illness.
Palliative Care focuses on maintaining and improving quality of life through pain/symptom management and, psycho-social/spiritual support and helping families set realistic goals for their future care.
Palliative Care is available at any stage of your illness, even as soon as you receive a diagnosis from your physician. You don’t have to wait until your disease has reached an advanced stage or when you’re in the final months of life. In fact, the earlier you start Palliative Care, the more benefit and support you’ll gain.
