Reviewed: Thursday, January 19, 2006
The aim of palliative care is to relieve suffering and improve the quality of living and dying for people whose disease cannot be cured. Palliative care supports the principle that it is important for people to be given the opportunity to live out their days with meaning and as little distress as possible. It may complement and enhance disease modifying therapy or it may become the total focus of care.
Palliative care:
- Embraces life and regards death as a normal process
- Neither speeds up death nor delays it
- Provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
- Integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of care
- Offers a support system to help patients live as well as possible until death
- Offers a support system to help families cope with their loved one's death and to help them cope afterward with their own bereavement
In Canada, we often use the terms palliative care and hospice interchangeably. They mean the same thing except when the word 'hospice' is used to describe a place. The place that 'hospice' refers to is generally a home-like place where people who are too sick to stay at home, but not sick enough to be in a hospital would go to. There are several hospices in B.C. which can be found through the BC Hospice Palliative Care Association Directory.
Palliative care helps people receive the care they need in the surroundings they prefer. So, palliative can be provided at home, in a hospice, a long-term care facility or in a hospital.
Palliative care is planned and delivered through the collaborative efforts of many people including the patient, their caregivers (family and friends) and service providers (cancer care team and community healthcare providers).
Each of the BC Cancer Agency's sites has a symptom management and palliative care team to assist our patients and families, who are having problems with their symptoms or dealing with the knowledge that their cancer is not curable. These teams are made up of doctors, nurses, counsellors, clinical pharmacists and nutritionists – each with their own special expertise to help patients work through physical and emotional hurdles. This includes managing pain and other distressing symptoms.
Each centre serves a portion of the province's population: