Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsWhat It IsProvidersTypesBenefitsPalliative Care vs. HospiceConditionsInsuranceHow to Get It
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
What It Is
Providers
Types
Benefits
Palliative Care vs. Hospice
Conditions
Insurance
How to Get It
Palliative care is a form of medical care aimed at relieving the symptoms associated with a serious illness while improving a person’s quality of life. In palliative care, a specialized team of medical and allied health professionals work together to address an individual’s physical, emotional, practical, and spiritual needs.
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Palliative care is often confused withhospice care, which is comfort care for patients who only have six months or less to live.
Differences Between Palliative and Hospice Care
What Is Palliative Care?
The ultimate aim of palliative care is to improve a person’s quality of life when faced with a serious or life-threatening illness. It can begin at any time during an illness, lasting days or even years, and be provided along with curative treatments.
Palliative care isnotrestricted to people receiving end-of-life care. It can be offered to anyone whose illness is reducing their quality of life, impacting their ability to function normally, or placing an undue burden on family or caregivers.
The scope of palliative care may involve:
Palliative care is based on the needs of the individual, not the individual’s diagnosis orprognosis(outlook).
Who Provides Palliative Care?
Palliative care is a specialized field of medicine. For doctors, board certification in palliative care is through the American Board of Medical Specialities (ABMS). Nurses and nurse practitioners can get certified through several credentialing organizations.
Ultimately, the most important member of the care team is you. Palliative care should be directed toward meeting your personal goals and needs. It is important to make your wishes known and to encourage your family and caregivers to do the same.
What Are the Types of Palliative Care?
Improving someone’s quality of life involves tending to more than just their physical concerns. As such, palliative care is a holistic approach intended to ease emotional, social, practical, and spiritual challenges as well.
Palliative care treatment may be aimed at any of the following, as appropriate:
What Is Terminal Sedation in Palliative Care?
What Are the Benefits of Palliative Care?
Some of the many benefits of palliative care include:
What Is the Difference Between Palliative Care and Hospice?
Hospice and palliative care are similar, but they do have important differences.
While palliative care may be given as someone nears death, it has a broader scope than hospice care and may also be given at diagnosis, during treatment, and/or after treatment to help patients with chronicorlife-threatening illness, such as cancer, heart failure, and HIV/AIDS.
Hospice care is end-of-life care. It is reserved for people who are believed to be in the last weeks or months of life. People in hospice may receive palliative care, but hospice care isn’t given to someone who is also receiving curative care or is expected to live for longer than six months.
What’s the Difference Between Palliative Care and Hospice?
What Diseases Are Treated With Palliative Care?
Historically, palliative care was used in people withincurable cancerand was largely synonymous with hospice care. Over time, the definition has evolved and broadened. Today, palliative care can be applied to many serious terminal or non-terminal conditions.
In addition to cancer, palliative care may be used in people with:
Palliative Care in People With Cancer
There may also be eligibility criteria for insurance coverage. Many private insurance plans cover palliative care.Medicareonly covers palliative care for certain conditions.
Furthermore, whileMedicare Part Bcovers certain palliative care services (like doctor’s fees and some supplies),Medicare Part Abenefits can only be applied to hospice care.
How Do You Get Palliative Care?
According to theCenter to Advance Palliative Care, the criteria for receiving palliative care can vary based on who is assessing the patient. Criteria categories include:
Summary
Palliative care is aimed at relieving symptoms and improving quality of life of people with serious or life-threatening illnesses. It may be included as a part of hospice care, but it is not the same thing as hospice care. With palliative care, you can still receivecurative carewhether your condition is terminal or not.
8 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Institute on Aging.What are palliative care and hospice care?Center to Advance Palliative Care.For clinicians.MedlinePlus.What is palliative care?American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.ABMS subspecialty certification in hospice and palliative medicine.Hoerger M, Wayser GR, Schwing G, Suzuki A, Perry LM.Impact of interdisciplinary outpatient specialty palliative care on survival and quality of life in adults with advanced cancer: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Ann Behav Med. 2019;53(7):674-685. doi:10.1093/abm/kay077Ziegler LE, Craigs CL, West RM, et al.Is palliative care support associated with better quality end-of-life care indicators for patients with advanced cancer? A retrospective cohort study.BMJ Open. 2018;8(1):e018284. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018284McDonald J, Swami N, Hannon B, et al.Impact of early palliative care on caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: cluster randomised trial.Ann Oncol. 2017;28(1):163-168. doi:10.1093/annonc/mdw438MedicareAdvantage.com.Does Medicare cover palliative care?
8 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.National Institute on Aging.What are palliative care and hospice care?Center to Advance Palliative Care.For clinicians.MedlinePlus.What is palliative care?American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.ABMS subspecialty certification in hospice and palliative medicine.Hoerger M, Wayser GR, Schwing G, Suzuki A, Perry LM.Impact of interdisciplinary outpatient specialty palliative care on survival and quality of life in adults with advanced cancer: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Ann Behav Med. 2019;53(7):674-685. doi:10.1093/abm/kay077Ziegler LE, Craigs CL, West RM, et al.Is palliative care support associated with better quality end-of-life care indicators for patients with advanced cancer? A retrospective cohort study.BMJ Open. 2018;8(1):e018284. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018284McDonald J, Swami N, Hannon B, et al.Impact of early palliative care on caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: cluster randomised trial.Ann Oncol. 2017;28(1):163-168. doi:10.1093/annonc/mdw438MedicareAdvantage.com.Does Medicare cover palliative care?
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
National Institute on Aging.What are palliative care and hospice care?Center to Advance Palliative Care.For clinicians.MedlinePlus.What is palliative care?American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.ABMS subspecialty certification in hospice and palliative medicine.Hoerger M, Wayser GR, Schwing G, Suzuki A, Perry LM.Impact of interdisciplinary outpatient specialty palliative care on survival and quality of life in adults with advanced cancer: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Ann Behav Med. 2019;53(7):674-685. doi:10.1093/abm/kay077Ziegler LE, Craigs CL, West RM, et al.Is palliative care support associated with better quality end-of-life care indicators for patients with advanced cancer? A retrospective cohort study.BMJ Open. 2018;8(1):e018284. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018284McDonald J, Swami N, Hannon B, et al.Impact of early palliative care on caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: cluster randomised trial.Ann Oncol. 2017;28(1):163-168. doi:10.1093/annonc/mdw438MedicareAdvantage.com.Does Medicare cover palliative care?
National Institute on Aging.What are palliative care and hospice care?
Center to Advance Palliative Care.For clinicians.
MedlinePlus.What is palliative care?
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.ABMS subspecialty certification in hospice and palliative medicine.
Hoerger M, Wayser GR, Schwing G, Suzuki A, Perry LM.Impact of interdisciplinary outpatient specialty palliative care on survival and quality of life in adults with advanced cancer: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Ann Behav Med. 2019;53(7):674-685. doi:10.1093/abm/kay077
Ziegler LE, Craigs CL, West RM, et al.Is palliative care support associated with better quality end-of-life care indicators for patients with advanced cancer? A retrospective cohort study.BMJ Open. 2018;8(1):e018284. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018284
McDonald J, Swami N, Hannon B, et al.Impact of early palliative care on caregivers of patients with advanced cancer: cluster randomised trial.Ann Oncol. 2017;28(1):163-168. doi:10.1093/annonc/mdw438
MedicareAdvantage.com.Does Medicare cover palliative care?
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