Archive for June, 2017

5 Surprising Facts About Palliative Care

There’s an important medical term that you may not have heard of: Palliative Care. “Palliate” means to make comfortable by treating a person’s symptoms resulting from a serious illness. Hospice is one form of this care that many Americans have heard of. Palliative Care is much more comprehensive than many people realize.

1. It’s More Than Just Pain Relief

Palliative care focuses on helping a person be comfortable by addressing all symptoms that cause physical distress: pain, digestive issues, swelling, difficulty breathing, etc. Palliative care professionals are experts at managing all symptoms associated with serious illness. Additionally, this care addresses the spiritual and emotional needs of patients.

2. It’s Delivered By A Team

Hospice and other palliative care providers utilize teams consisting of doctors, nurses, nurses aides, social workers, counselors, chaplains, and trained volunteers, working together to provide, physical, emotional, social and spiritual care.

3. Palliative Care Includes The Patient’s Family

The goals of care are to improve the quality of a seriously ill person’s life and to support that person and their family (or support network) during and after treatment.

4. It’s Not Limited To Hospice

For more than thirty years, hospice programs have been providing palliative care for people at the end of life. Hospice serves more than 1.65 million patients and their family caregivers each year. Hospices are the largest providers of palliative care services in the county. However, this very same approach to care is being used by other healthcare providers, including teams in hospitals, nursing facilities and home health agencies in combination with other medical treatments to help people who are seriously ill.

5. It’s Available At Any Time During Illness

If it can help make life more enjoyable, why wait? Palliative care may be given at any time during a person’s illness, from diagnosis on. Under hospice palliative care, a patient focuses on comfort and quality of life. Under palliative care outside of hospice, a patient may continue with curative treatments.

Houston Hospice can help you understand more about palliative care and all the services offered by Houston Hospice. Contact our 24/7 help and information number at 713-468-2441.

Additional information on caregiving and advance care planning is available from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s Caring Connections at www.CaringInfo.org.

—Karla Goolsby, Houston Hospice Communications Specialist

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