What are the principles of palliative care?

Here are the five principles of palliative care. 1. Palliative care respects the goals, likes, and choices of the dying person. 2. Palliative care looks after the medical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of the dying person. 3. Palliative care supports the needs of the family members. 4. Palliative care helps gain access to needed health care providers and appropriate care settings. 5. Palliative care builds ways to provide excellent care at the end of life. These are listed on http://www.ec-online.net/knowledge/Articles/palliative.html. There are some bullets listed below each principle as well.

As a person involved in palliative care, I can tell you the simple answer is that palliative care from the right provider for the terminal person can help make the remainder of your days here better than if palliative care were not provided.

A dotted line has recently been drawn separating palliative care from hospice. Technically, a person is not eligible for hospice unless they are expected to pass within 6 months assuming their disease follows the usual path. Many people are on hospice for much longer, years in fact. It depends solely on the individual condition. On the other hand, palliative care per se is simply making things better, irrespective of the terminal diagnosis and time frame involved.

In some cases, people with very serious illnesses that cannot be expected to be cured by organized medicine have trouble getting proper pain control or other types of care that, rather than curing a disease, make life easier. The medical machine is set up to cure and release, not care for the long term. Palliative medicine can fill this void.