What is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is a field of medicine concerned with relieving and reducing patient pain and discomfort. The primary mission of palliative care is to help both patients and their families deal with pain caused by an illness or the treatment of an illness, rather than focusing on curing the actual disease. Palliative care does not just focus on addressing physical pain; the biggest strength of this branch of medicine is that it provides integrated care to help patients and their families deal with the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional toll that disease can take.

What is the Difference Between Palliative Care and Hospice Care?

While hospice care and palliative care has similar goals, help patients and their families manage discomfort and pain, there are key differences between these two areas of healthcare.

The primary difference is that hospice care is solely available for terminally ill patients. Hospice is focused on providing end-of-life care to manage pain and patient needs. Unlike hospice care, palliative care is a service that is provided to any patient who needs it without restriction.

Palliative care services are well suited for traditional hospice patients as well as patient suffering from chronic illness, long-lived disease, or anyone in need of help managing chronic pain or side effects caused by illness or medication.

Why is Palliative Care Important?

Over 130 million Americans suffer from one or more chronic illnesses - this represents nearly half of the population of the United States. Palliative care can help patients with chronic illness manage their pain. Palliative care can also help patients with pain management for any serious illnesses as well as end-of-life care. Our palliative care services are available for any patients or family members who need help dealing with the toll, physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, that disease can take.

Palliative Care is About Maximizing Quality of Life