Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of the symptoms of a disease or slows its progress rather than providing a cure. It aims at improving quality of life, by reducing or eliminating pain and other physical symptoms, enabling the patient to ease or resolve psychological and spiritual problems, and supporting the partner and family.

The concept of palliative care

---

The World Health Organisation (WHO), in a 1990 report on the topic, defined palliative care as "the active total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment". This definition stresses the terminal nature of the disease. However, the term can also be used more generally to refer to anything that alleviates symptoms, even if there is also hope of a cure by other means; thus, a more recent WHO statement calls palliative care "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness." In some cases, palliative treatments may be used to alleviate the side effects of curative treatments, such as relieving the nausea associated with chemotherapy.

The term is not generally used with regard to a chronic disease such as diabetes which, although currently incurable, has treatments that are (ideally) effective enough that it is not considered a progressive or life-threatening disease in the same sense as cancer or progressive neurological conditions. It is, however, occasionally used with regard to some diseases, such as chronic, progressive pulmonary disorders and end stage renal disease or chronic heart failure.

More on [ Palliative care ]

NYT > Health

Patient Money: In Anxious Times, Medical Help for the Mind as Well as the Body
By LESLEY ALDERMAN Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:37:28 -0000
A new law requires that next year big group plans provide the same level of care for mental health as for medical ones.
Regarding Tamiflu, Doctors and Patients Face a Question of When to Act
By SHAILA DEWAN Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:06:27 -0000
There has been some confusion among doctors about whether to prescribe the antiviral drug Tamiflu for less severe cases.

CNN.com - Health

Treating trauma victims may cause its own trauma
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:24:11 -0500
As they listen to tales of life's worst moments, they may absorb some of their patients' suffering. Who protects the mental health of our mental health professionals?
Study: Holocaust survivors have higher cancer risk
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:47:57 -0500
Many Jews lived through extreme hunger, mental duress and near-death experiences during the Holocaust. Now -- decades after the war -- they face another peril: a higher risk of developing cancer.

Subscribe to Home_Health RSS feed