Palliative Care
An interdisciplinary approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses.
"Palliative" comes from the Latin root palliare meaning "to cloak" — surrounding patients with comfort and care.
WHO Definition
What is Palliative Care?
A patient-centred approach to serious illness
Since the 1990s, many palliative care programs involved a disease-specific approach. However, as the field developed throughout the 2000s, the WHO began to take a broader patient-centred approach that suggests that the principles of palliative care should be applied as early as possible to any chronic and ultimately fatal illness.
This shift was important because if a disease-oriented approach is followed, the needs and preferences of the patient are not fully met and aspects of care, such as pain, quality of life, and social support, as well as spiritual and emotional needs, fail to be addressed. Rather, a patient-centred model prioritizes relief of suffering and tailors care to increase the quality of life for terminally ill patients.
Palliative care is appropriate for individuals with serious/chronic illnesses across the age spectrum and can be provided as the main goal of care or in tandem with curative treatment. It is ideally provided by interdisciplinary medical teams which can include physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and chaplains.
Physical & Emotional Relief
Enhanced Communication
Coordinated Care
Global Need for Palliative Care
Forty million people each year are expected to need palliative care, however, only 14% of this population is able to receive this kind of care, with a majority in high-income countries.
Appropriately engaging palliative care providers as a part of patient care improves overall symptom control, quality of life, and family satisfaction of care while reducing overall healthcare costs.
Care Settings
Palliative care can be provided in a variety of contexts including:
High-certainty evidence supports the finding that implementation of home-based end-of-life care programs may increase the number of adults who will die at home and slightly improve patient satisfaction at a one-month follow-up.
Six Ambitions for 2021–26
From the UK's National Palliative and End of Life Care Partnership
Fair access to end-of-life care for everyone regardless of who they are
Care regardless of where people live or their circumstances
Maximizing comfort and wellbeing
Informed and timely conversations
Compassionate Care for All
Palliative care offers a beautiful alternative that accompanies people through suffering with dignity, compassion, and love.
It is important to remember to be a compassionate and empathetic caregiver that is there to listen and be there for their patients.