Palliative Care: Getting Help Managing Serious Illness
This weekend I got a call from an old friend. Her mother’s health is failing and she was flying across the country to try and get her the care she needs. Her mother is in her 90’s, has multiple ailments and multiple doctors. No one, it seems, has been coordinating her care and each specialist has been prescribing medicines without considering her care in an integrated manner. As a result, my friend reported, her mother seems to be over medicated, uncomfortable and in constant pain. The family feels that no doctor is able to help her manage her symptoms and they are struggling to provide her with adequate support. Unfortunately, this happens often.
I suggested that my friend seek a palliative care consultation for her mother, so that her care could be coordinated with a focus on providing her with an improved quality of life. My friend said that her mother’s primary care doctor had told her that palliative care wasn’t available because, “her mother didn’t have a terminal diagnosis.”
Her doctor, like many people, was confusing hospice care with palliative care. Unfortunately, this also happens often.
To put it bluntly, that doctor was wrong. Palliative care is a resource for anyone living with serious illness, it doesn’t require a terminal diagnosis at all. Palliative care teams are made up of an interdisciplinary team of professionals—and can include doctors, nurses, social workers, nutritionists and even chaplains for spirtual support. The goal is to improve the quality of life for the seriously ill and their families. At its best, palliative care can address physical, mental, spiritual and social needs.
Palliative care can be provided in hospitals, but not just there—it can be provided in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, clinics, or even at home. Some insurance policies will pay for it. Getting palliative care does not require that a person give up treatment for their serious illness either. Palliative care can help symptoms such as:
Pain
Nausea
Anxiety
Depression
Fatigue
Trouble sleeping
My friend’s doctor was, it seems, thinking about hospice care when he told my friend that her mother required a terminal diagnosis. Hospice care does require that a doctor think someone is likely to die within six months (although you can extend hospice care if a patient is still alive after that time). And unlike palliative care, in hospice care treatment for the underlying illness is stopped.
Hospice care is appropriate for those who are eligible for it. But palliative care is an option for anyone, like my friend’s mother, who is seriously ill and needs help managing multiple illnesses and symptoms.
Here are some resources for information about palliative care: