Palliative care focuses on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a serious illness — whatever the diagnosis — and can be provided along with curative treatment. It also provides patients with much-needed education regarding advance care planning as well as their disease and its prognosis.
Our Approach
With palliative care, our goal is always to improve the quality of life for both patients and their family by working alongside providers to treat symptoms. The care team focuses on relieving pain and symptoms such as anxiety, shortness of breath, nausea, and depression.
Palliative care is proven to help reduce hospital admissions and readmissions and improve quality of life. They also will help the patient decide the next steps: the plan and goals of care.
Palliative care may also help patients gain strength, improve their ability to handle medical treatments, and offer more participation regarding their care.
Palliative care may be offered for people with illnesses such as:
Cancer
Heart disease
Lung disease
Kidney failure
Dementia
HIV/AIDS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
Palliative Plan of Care
A plan of care is developed together with the patient, their health care providers, and the family. It may include and is not limited to the following:
Management of symptoms and side effects
Understanding of the disease status, process, and prognosis