Palliative care is family-centered care offered by an interdisciplinary medical team, providing holistic physical, psychological, spiritual and social care, providing a whole-person and whole-course medical care plan, and relieving patients of various uncomfortable symptoms. It helps patients and their families cope with various emotions and feelings arising from illness, and then respect the dignity of life and the rights of dying patients, so as to accompany them to the end of their life. Palliative care is an idea that can also be applied early in the treatment of disease.

Goals of palliative care

• Alleviate or relieve the patient of any uncomfortable symptoms caused by the disease.
• Promote the best quality of life for patients and their families.
• Help patients live more fully and meaningfully in the last few days of their journey without deliberately shortening or lengthening their lives.
• Help patients and family members to cherish the time of family reunion, remove resentment and fulfill their wishes.
• Assist family members and provide psychological support and counseling during illness or after death.

Who needs palliative care?

• Those who are identified as terminal patients by the attending physicians, with the therapeutic effect not good.
• Those who have physical pain or other symptoms of discomfort and need psychological or spiritual assistance.
• Those who are not suitable for curative treatment, but only for symptom relief or supportive treatment, as determined by the attending physician.
• Patients and their families agree not to receive CPR in case of terminal crisis.
• Patients and their families agree to receive and participate in palliative care.

Why do patients need palliative care?

We believe that everyone's life is precious and should be taken good care of even when they are reaching the end of life. What terminally ill patients and their families need is not invasive and painful treatment, nor to give up treatment and ignore it, but to respect, take care of them, relieve their pain, so that patients can have dignity in life, fulfill their wishes and leave peacefully, while family members can brave the grieving period and start their own life again.

What is the palliative care team?

Team members include at least physicians, nurses, social workers, religious teachers, and volunteers. Other members may join the team as needed, such as dietitians, pharmacists, art therapists, etc., to care for patients and their families.

What is the service content of palliative care?

At present, service items include three modes: hospitalization, home care and joint care.

• Physiological needs: Use of various drugs or adjuvant therapies to alleviate symptoms of patients, such as pain, nausea and vomiting, dyspnea, loss of appetite, dysphagia, defecation disorders, lymphedema, etc.
• Keep your body clean and tidy: As physical cleanliness is a basic physiological requirement, helping and teaching how to provide comfortable care can maintain personal dignity.
• Social and psychological needs: such as the feeling of uncertainty, emotional relief, fear of becoming a burden on family members, stress, loneliness, being reluctant and unable to let go, unfinished wishes, making a will, and behavioral assistance.
• Spiritual needs: including the need to find meaning, the meaning of forgiveness, the need for religious beliefs, and the affirmation of life, inner peace.
• Help patients and family members face and survive the death process, and help families adapt to new life.
• Care for dying symptoms: educate family members about common symptoms and various preparations so that they can anticipate and adjust to the time required to avoid unnecessary panic and surprise.

What if I want palliative care?

• Palliative care at home: patients at home are referred directly by the original attending physician for consultation, emergency treatment or "palliative care clinic" in the family medicine department.
• Joint palliative care: inpatients can receive the services of the palliative care team in the original ward, with the ward physician issuing a consultation sheet.
• Palliative care ward: patients and their families who agree with the concept of hospice care and meet the admission conditions can receive inpatient services.