Many people hear “palliative care” and assume it means giving up on treatment. It doesn’t. Palliative Care is specialized care that helps people with serious illness feel better, at any stage, including while they continue treatment aimed at a cure.
What Palliative Care does
The focus is quality of life. A palliative team works to relieve pain and symptoms such as shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea, poor appetite, anxiety, and trouble sleeping. Just as important, it helps patients and families understand their options and make care decisions that reflect what matters most to them.
Palliative Care also supports the family: answering questions, explaining what to expect, and easing some of the stress of caring for someone who is seriously ill.
Palliative Care vs. hospice
Hospice is a form of palliative care for people who are no longer pursuing curative treatment, typically in the last months of life. Palliative Care is broader. It can begin at diagnosis and continue for years, alongside chemotherapy, dialysis, surgery, or other treatments.
Who can benefit
Palliative Care can help people living with cancer, heart failure, COPD and other lung diseases, kidney disease, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and many other serious conditions.
Signs it may be time to ask
Consider asking about Palliative Care if symptoms are hard to control, if there have been repeated trips to the emergency room or hospital, if treatment decisions feel overwhelming, or if family caregivers are stretched thin. Many families say they wish they had started sooner.
Getting started
Palliative Care works together with your current doctors. You don’t need to change physicians or stop treatment. A first conversation usually covers the illness, current symptoms, and your goals, and the plan grows from there.
Related services
This article is for general information only and isn’t medical advice. Talk with your doctor about your specific situation.