Palliative care definition

Q: What is the Center to Advance Palliative Care's definition of palliative care?

Answer: For readers' benefit three important definitions of palliative care are given below:

The Center to Advance Palliative Care definition: “Specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses…focused on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain and stress of a serious illness—whatever the diagnosis. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. Palliative care is provided by a team of doctors, nurses and other specialists who work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness and can be provided along with curative treatment.”

WHO definition: “An approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) definition: “Palliative care means patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and facilitating patient autonomy, access to information, and choice.”

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References:

1. Center to Advance Palliative Care. About palliative care: What is palliative care? Available at: https://www.capc.org/about/palliative-care/ (Accessed on June 11, 2022).

2. World Health Organization (WHO) definition of palliative care, available online at http://www.who.int

3. Federal Register 2008 - 73 FR 32204, June 5, 2008.