Palliative Care

By : 8th Team
ETHIC AND HEALTH LAW
 Definition of Palliative Care
• Palliative care is an approach that improves
the quality of life of patients and their families
facing the problems associated with life-
threatening illness, through the prevention
and relief of suffering by means of early
identification and impeccable asessment and
treatment of pain and other problems,
physical, psychological and spiritual.
 Palliative Care
• Provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
• Affirms life and regards dying as a normal process
• Intends neither to hasten nor postpone death
• Integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care
• Offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until
death
• Offers a support system to help the family cope during the pantient’s
illness and in their own bereavement
• Uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families,
including bereavement counselling, if indicated
• Will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of
illness
• Is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other
therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy and
radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better
understand and manage distressing clinical complications.
 Principles of Palliative Care
• No single sphere of concern is adequate
without considering the relationship with the
other two. This usually requires genuine
interdisciplinary collaboration
 Terminal care or end-of-life care
This is an important part of palliative care and usually refers to
the management of patients during their last few days, weeks, or
months of life from a point at which it becomes clear that the
patient is in a progressive state of decline. Howefer, end-of-life
care may require consideration much nearer the beginning of
the illness trajectory of many chronic, incurable non-cancer
diseases.
 History of Palliative medicine as a
specialty
• The history of hospice movement during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries demonstrates
the innovations of several charismatic leaders.
These practitioners were enthusiasts for their
own particular contribution to care of the dying,
and they were also the teachers of the next
generation of palliative physicians.
• This whole-person attitude has been labelled as
“Holistic Care
Case Review