The goal of palliative care is to
If life expectancy is not very long, the patient may be given both palliative and hospice care. Anyone who lives with a serious, chronic, and potentially terminal condition can benefit from this care.
Palliative care is appropriate for anyone who can benefit from it. Caregivers typically include doctors, often those with a specialty in palliative care, nurses, nursing assistants, therapists and psychiatrists, nutritionists, pain specialists, home health care workers, social workers, chaplains, and other spiritual care providers. The team members may be selected depending on the patient’s needs. Palliative care is generally provided by a team of diverse health care professionals. Palliative care can also be provided in residential settings, in hospitals, in nursing homes, in assisted living facilities, in cancer care centers, and in hospice care centers. It may be provided in the home or in a treatment facility on an outpatient basis for those patients who are still able to live at home most of the time. Where this kind of care is given depends on the patient and the individual situation.
The main goal is to improve the quality of life for the patient and for those who love and care for them. This care may focus on any of the symptoms caused by an illness, or the side effects of curative treatment like nausea caused by chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Palliative care is a medical specialty with the goal of providing patients with relief from symptoms, not of providing a cure for an illness or disease. It is a compassionate type of care that takes patients’ goals, needs, and wishes and devises treatments that will give them a better quality of life for as long as possible. Instead of focusing the goals of medicine solely on curing a disease, the shift to palliative care is a shift to more patient-centered care. In recent years palliative care has become more important in medicine. Palliative care may be administered alongside curative care, but it is not the same thing. Patients who receive this type of care are those living with serious illnesses that are chronic or terminal. Instead, it focuses on relieving symptoms and helping patients feel better and more comfortable. Palliative care is an important type of health care that is not focused on curing any illness or disease.