Enhancing Life with Palliative and Hospice Care The Comforting Benefits of Both when Navigating Illness
When facing a serious illness or life-limiting condition, palliative care and hospice care can provide you or a loved one with relief, a sense of control and enhancement of life in the midst of difficult circumstances. Both palliative care and hospice care focus on the needs of the whole patient, not just someone’s illness. Both have the goal of decreasing symptoms and increasing quality of life, and both help patients and their families live as fully as possible and with dignity in spite of their illness.
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Palliative Care Palliative care is for patients managing a serious illness. With palliative care, curative treatments continue but with a more holistic approach that takes you and your whole life into account. With palliative care, you get a team of specially trained professionals to help you navigate your life, as well as your illness. A palliative care team typically consists of a medical social worker, some combination of healthcare providers – such as a physician, nurse practitioner and nurses – and perhaps a pharmacist, nutritionist, spiritual counselor and volunteers. Working
Aging Resources 2021–2022