Support for Serious Illness
Palliative Care Is Here to Help
Being diagnosed with a serious illness is life-changing. Many decisions must be made, with many unknowns. But there are experts who can help you navigate the complicated landscape of a long-term, serious illness. Palliative care specialists focus on comfort care and improving your quality of life during a serious illness.
“Palliative care is a holistic approach to medicine and caregiving,” explains Dr. Matthew DeCamp, a physician at University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. “It places the patient’s quality of life and needs and values front and center.”
Sometimes, palliative care is confused with hospice care. Both offer comfort care and symptom management. Hospice is a type of palliative care that’s only offered at the end of life. It requires all treatments be stopped. But other types of palliative care can be offered alongside life-saving treatments. Palliative care is available to people of any age, including children.
What makes an illness “serious?” A high risk of death or one that lowers your quality of life or ability to perform daily tasks. Examples include chronic heart and lung diseases, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s, and many others.
A palliative care team can assist with many aspects of a serious illness. They can help you find ways to cope with physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual suffering. They can support you with symptom management and assist health care providers in coordinating your care.
Palliative care can be provided in hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient palliative care clinics and certain other specialized clinics, or at home.
The palliative team can also help you create an advance care plan. This describes your wishes for future medical treatments. It includes who you want to make your medical decisions if you’re not able to. The team can also support you with end-of-life care, hospice care, and bereavement if needed.
Making a Plan
There’s good data to support that early palliative care integration improves health-related quality of life.
But what makes a better quality of life can be different for everyone. The palliative care provider will meet with you really early on. They’ll find out about your medical history and the symptoms that are most distressing to you. They will learn your preferences for care and communication. Then, the provider can work with you to make sure your advance care plan reflects your concerns and goals.
Unfortunately, advance care planning conversations often don’t happen until too late. If you wait until you are experiencing a medical crisis or if you are at the end of your life, you don’t really have the time to contemplate what is most important to you.
Getting the Help You Need
If you’ve been diagnosed with a serious illness, ask your doctor about palliative care. Some providers may not offer it to you early on. Others may not offer it at all. But your provider may be able to refer you to a palliative care specialist.
Palliative care can help you improve your quality of life and understand your treatment options. It’s available as soon as you are diagnosed with a serious illness.
Source: National Institute of Health
Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.