What is Palliative Care?

Palliative Care is:

“… the active holistic care of patients with advanced, progressive illness. Management of pain and other symptoms and provision of psychological, social and spiritual support is paramount. The goal of palliative care is to achieve the best quality of life for patients and their families.” (W.H.O, 2002)

Palliative care is based on a number of principles, and aims to:

• provide relief from pain and other distressing symptoms.
• integrate the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care.
• offer a support system to help patients to live as actively as possible until death and to help the family to cope during the patient’s illness and in their own bereavement.
• be applied early in the course of illness in conjunction with other therapies intended to prolong life (such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy), including investigations to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.