Palliative Care
Cancer and its treatments can cause many unwanted symptoms and side effects, both physical and emotional. Palliative care can provide relief for the person experiencing these issues and improve their quality of life at all stages of cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Palliative care is an area of medicine focused on pain and symptom management. Palliative care specialists are highly trained in the most up-to-date ways of managing pain and discomfort. They are able to provide help controlling problems such as pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite and sleeping problems. They are also able to provide emotional support. The team works with your primary care doctor or oncologist to determine the best way to meet your needs.
Palliative care is not the same as hospice care. Hospice care uses palliative care approaches, but is for people who are no longer seeking curative treatment for their illness, and it is focused on end-of-life care and support. Unlike in hospice care, palliative care can be used along with medical treatment for any serious illness, at any point in the illness. In fact, a recent study showed that early palliative care had major benefits for people with advanced lung cancer. Not only was quality of life and mood improved in the group of patients receiving early palliative care, but on average they lived longer than those not receiving early palliative care.
In February 2012, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), a non-profit organization of nearly 30,000 oncology practitioners with the overarching goals of improving cancer care and prevention, issued a provisional clinical opinion (PCO) recommending that all patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer be offered palliative care along with standard cancer therapy. To read more about the recommendation, click here.
For more information about palliative care:
Getpalliativecare.org
A resource from the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Provides information about palliative care, including a provider directory
Palliative Care in Cancer
A fact sheet provided by the National Cancer Institute with an overview about palliative care
Article: Early Palliative Care for Patients with Metastatic Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer, by J.S. Temel, 2010.
Research article showing results from a study on the effects of early palliative care for patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer
Palliative Doctors
A website run by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine with information and resources about palliative care as well as hospice.