Palliation

Palliation is a form of medical care or treatment that focuses on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. Non-hospice palliative care is not dependent on prognosis and is offered in conjunction with curative and all other appropriate forms of medical treatment. It should not be confused with hospice care which delivers palliative care to those at the end of life. Palliative treatments may include medical procedures, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or pharmaceutical drugs, for example.

History

The term "palliative care" may be derived from the Latin palliatus, "cloaked", which was used in the sense of "to cloak", "cover", or "conceal". The term "palliative care" was first used in the modern medical sense by Canadian physician Balfour Mount in the 1970s.

Principles

The World Health Organization describes palliative care as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual."

See also

• Hospice
• Pain management
• Palliative sedation
• End-of-life care

External links

• World Health Organization: Palliative Care
• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization

Palliation Resources
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