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What is palliative care?

This draft document has been prepared by George Hankins Hull

Palliative Care
The aim of palliative care is to ease the suffering that results from illness. Palliative care seeks to provide treatment for your symptoms, even when the underlying disease cannot be cured. The goals of palliative care are to relieve your pain and other discomfort and to help reduce your family’s stress. In addition, palliative care seeks to provide information to help you cope and live with a chronic illness. Palliative care encompasses emotional, social, and spiritual needs as well. During the course of your illness, a palliative approach to care can help you and your family to achieve a better quality of life.

To request a palliative care consultation
You or your family can make a request to consult a palliative care team representative by speaking with your nurse or doctor. Your health care team also may decide to request a palliative care consult. A palliative care representative will visit you within 24 hours of a request. After the visit, our palliative care team will work with your primary doctor to make suggestions for your care. A palliative care team member will visit you daily until your discharge from the hospital. You may request a palliative care consult at any time during your hospitalization.

Our palliative care team
At LRGHealthcare, our palliative care team is staffed with dedicated professionals who work with you to help you cope and find options for relief of any symptom related to your illness. In addition, the palliative care team can help you with important medical decisions, with practical needs, and provide pastoral and emotional support. Our palliative care team is staffed by professionals who are dedicated to you and your family and will work closely with your primary doctor to provide the best possible care for you and your family.

A cooperative approach to care
The members of our palliative care team work collaboratively with your doctor to recommend treatment for you. A wide range of medical treatments are available for symptoms such as pain, nausea, shortness of breath, and other distressing symptoms. In addition, the palliative care team can recommend alternative forms of treatment, such as music therapy, aroma therapy, acupuncture and massage. Alternative treatments can be used in concert with traditional medical treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapies.

Supportive care
Our palliative care team can help you determine personal treatment goals and assist you to choose among the various treatment options. The palliative care team can help you plan for your discharge from the hospital and for ongoing palliative care after you leave. The LRGHealthcare palliative care program offers counseling for emotional and spiritual concerns, as well as bereavement support for families.

Decision Making
When you live with a serious illness, you and your family face some hard choices. You may feel the need for specialized assistance to consider the various options presented to you. Help is available to you through the palliative care team to assist you and your family as you make important decisions about the end of life and treatment issues.

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