What Is Palliative Care?

Content medically reviewed by Laura Lizakowski, MD

Receiving a life-altering diagnosis, such as cancer, can be overwhelming, as it often comes with challenging symptoms and significant changes to your daily life. Palliative care, also known as supportive care, offers specialized medical support to help you navigate these difficulties. By working alongside your primary treatment, palliative care focuses on improving your quality of your life rather than solely addressing the illness itself.

“Think of palliative care as an extra layer of support,” said Dr. Laura Lizakowski, supportive and palliative care provider at Essentia Health. “It doesn’t replace your medical treatments, but it supports you as you go through them.”

At Essentia Health, Supportive & Palliative Care is available to patients with life-limiting illnesses or injuries. You may need Supportive & Palliative Care if you –

• Have repeatedly been to the hospital or Emergency Room for the same health issue
• Need help making decisions about your future or your medical care
• Experience symptoms that impact your quality of life, like constipation, pain, or shortness of breath
• Need help creating an advance directive (a legal document that outlines your healthcare preferences)

Is Palliative Care the Same as Hospice?

While palliative and hospice care prioritize comfort and quality of life for those with serious illnesses, hospice is a specialized form of care offered during the last weeks or months of life. With palliative care, treatments to improve or cure your condition continue. When someone is in hospice care, the goal is to make them as comfortable as possible by managing their symptoms. Treatments that try to cure their illness are usually stopped at this point.

“Palliative care is not focused on the outcome,” Dr. Lizakowski said. “You can choose to receive palliative care at any stage after your diagnosis, while hospice usually begins when your doctor says there’s a life expectancy of six months or less.”

Understanding the differences between palliative care and hospice in timing, setting, and treatment options can help you determine the best choice for yourself or a loved one.

What to Expect With Palliative Care

Each person’s experience with palliative care is different, as this type of treatment addresses your specific needs at a particular time. You can expect help with managing symptoms, emotional support, and spiritual counseling, if religion plays a role in your life. Your family and primary caregivers also benefit from palliative care.

Symptom Management

Serious diseases like cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders cause an array of symptoms that make it difficult to carry out daily chores or enjoy your favorite activities. Palliative care helps manage these symptoms, including fatigue, chronic pain, sleep changes, depression, and anxiety.

Symptom management in palliative care often involves carefully prescribed medications, which can include opioids for pain relief. When opioids are part of the treatment plan, monitoring by the palliative care team is essential to ensure comfort, manage any potential side effects, and optimize your well-being while maintaining safety.

Emotional Support

Anxiety, depression, and grief are just a few of the emotional tolls brought on by serious medical conditions. Palliative care specialists help you and your family members by listening to any well-being challenges and addressing these concerns, often through therapy and mental health exercises. Your palliative care team can also connect you with support groups and other individuals going through a similar experience.

Spiritual Care

When dealing with a serious diagnosis, many people turn to their spirituality for meaning, purpose, and hope. Chaplains and spiritual counselors from different religious backgrounds offer spiritual care that addresses specific religious and spiritual needs, such as through prayer, hymns, and other religious practices.

Care Coordination

Care coordination is a key part of palliative care. It makes it easier for you to handle the different medical care you're receiving, which can reduce your burden.Your palliative care team –

• Coordinates care between all your doctors and specialists
• Handles administrative tasks on your behalf
• Works with caregivers to schedule appointments

Support for Family Members

Palliative care goes beyond supporting you—it also helps those close to you cope with your condition. It offers emotional and psychological support, education about the illness, and practical advice for caregiving tasks.Family members can expect –

• Assistance with advance care planning with loved ones and making informed decisions about treatment options
• Connection with resources
• Help navigating difficult treatment decisions

The Palliative Care Team

At Essentia Health, Supportive & Palliative Care is provided by a team consisting of trained professionals with additional training and expertise in supportive care. They coordinate and work alongside your existing medical team to offer additional treatment and support.

Your palliative care team may consist of –

• A supportive care specialist—a doctor with advanced training in palliative care
• Nurse practitioners
• Social workers
• A chaplain or spiritual/religious counselor

Who Can Benefit from Palliative Care?

People of all ages can receive palliative care. It’s usually recommended when someone has an illness that significantly limits their quality of life and ability to do daily activities.People with these conditions may benefit from palliative care –

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Cancer
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Dementia
• Heart disease
• HIV/AIDS
• Multiple sclerosis
• Parkinson’s disease
• Stroke

Palliative care plays a critical role in improving the quality of life for patients facing any of these serious illnesses by offering comprehensive support for their physical, emotional, and psychological needs. By focusing on symptom management and individualized care, it empowers patients and their families to navigate challenging health situations with clarity.