Palliative care (or supportive care) is care that focuses on relieving symptoms caused by serious illnesses like cancer.
It can be given at any point during a person’s illness to help them feel more comfortable.

Palliative care is care for adults and children with serious illness that focuses on relieving suffering and improving quality of life for patients and their families, but is not intended to cure the disease itself and should be provided along with curative treatment.

It’s designed to help people live as well as they can for as long as they can, even though they have a serious illness.

Palliative care focuses on helping people get relief from symptoms caused by serious illness – like nausea, pain, fatigue, or shortness of breath. Palliative care looks to help with emotional and spiritual problems, too.

It’s treatment of the symptoms – it’s not expected to cure any serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

In the past, the term palliative care was mainly used to describe the act of promoting comfort when aggressive treatment was no longer working – the care given at the end of life.

recently, it’s getting much more attention and study. It has grown into a specialized field of knowledge as well as being a standard part of care given by doctors and cancer care teams.
Palliative care is given throughout the cancer experience, whenever the person is having symptoms that need to be controlled. This can be from the time of diagnosis until the end of life.

Palliative care is also about giving patients options and having them take part in decisions about their care.

It’s about assuring that all their care needs are addressed – their physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs.

Why Do We Need Palliative Care ?
Estimated 34 million people need PC in the country. 75% of 8lakh new cancer cases per year are diagnosed at a very late stage at that point treatment is unlikely to be of value in preventing disease progression.

1.6 million people per year experience cancer pain but less than 3% have access to adequate pain relief. It results in patients dying UNDIGNIFIED AND AGONIZING DEATHS.

Cancer is a very invasive and destructive enemy for our body and mind. With the side effects of Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy the body remains broken even after completion of therapy. It is a very long process to repair and restore the damage caused by the treatment to fight the disease.

"At some stage, cancer may not be treatable but cancer pain can be adequately controlled" Don't suffer from Cancer Pain!!

There is a difference between
CURE AND CARE
WHO defines PC as "The active total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment."

Palliative care may also increase survival. A 2010 study of lung cancer looked at patients who were given palliative care alongside cancer treatment.

The patients who received palliative care along with cancer treatment lived nearly 3 months longer than the patients who received the cancer treatment without the palliative care.

Who should get palliative care and when?
Any person diagnosed with a serious illness who is having symptoms should get palliative care like

Cancer Patients Terminally ill patients with endstage heart failure, endstage renal failure Progressive neurological diseases like motor neurone disease, Multiple sclerosis Spinal cord injury with permanent bedridden patients Stroke with bedridden and permanently disabled person Dementia Elderly patients Patients with HIV and AIDS

In all the systemic diseases, we need to identify the treatable and reversible cause of suffering and it has to be addressed along with concern specialists.

By the concept of PC we can provide physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual care, all togather it is holistic care.

Death is a natural process and we do not shorten or unnecessarily prolong the life. Primary aim is to reduce suffering by doing pain management and symptom management.

This “palliative care team” typically includes a palliative care doctor (who may be board-certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine), a palliative care nurse, social worker, patient navigator, and maybe a person with a spiritual role such as a pastoral counselor or chaplain.

Many hospitals and oncology clinics have these teams as part of the services they provide. They can send the team to patients in intensive care units, emergency rooms, or hospital wards to talk with the patient and family and help with palliative care.

Model of Care
Even though the palliative care team is often based in a hospital or clinic Hospice care Out patient clinic Home care

ADVANCED DIRECTIVE
An advance health care directive is a kind of legal document that tells your doctor your wishes about your health care. Get general information about different advance health care directives, like health care power of attorney, living wills, do-not-resuscitate, and other agreements like these.