For many, the term “palliative care” may be confusing. This month, in honor of National Palliative Care Month, we’re sharing what makes palliative care so beneficial for patients living with serious, chronic illness.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for individuals with serious illness. The care and services provide an extra layer of support for patients and their families. This type of care focuses on providing patients with relief from the symptoms and stresses of their illness, while focusing on how the disease and associated symptoms impact their life, family and relationships. The overall philosophy and service of palliative care extends beyond just end-of-life. In fact, palliative care plans and services can, and often do, span across years.
“It’s important to understand that while all hospice is palliative care, not all palliative care is hospice,” says Dr. Shagun Saggar, SSM Health Palliative Medicine Division Chief for the Wisconsin region. “We are not here to help patients give up, but rather to affirm their life during serious illness.”
Palliative care treats the whole person, focusing on ways to address the totality of the patient’s relational existence -physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. Services may include counseling and coordination of care, assistance in completing advance directives, and facilitating difficult conversations among loved ones. Palliative care also offers social work services to connect patients with resources for ongoing support, offer spiritual care and support for people of all faiths, and enhance a patient’s well-being and quality of life.
Any patient living with a serious, chronic illness can benefit from palliative care services, but most often patients are diagnosed with:
- Cancers
- Heart Disease/ ex: Heart Failure
- Lung Disease/ ex: COPD
- Neuro-degenerative conditions like ALS or Muscular Dystrophy
- Dementia
- Kidney failure or Chronic Kidney Disease
- Trauma
- Other serious, chronic illness
Palliative care providers meet patients where they are in the continuum of care, whether they’ve just been diagnosed, are in active treatment or have completed therapy.
“In palliative care, we truly believe we can help patients at any age and at any stage of their disease,” says Dr. Saggar. “For us, there is no such thing as ‘nothing more’ that can be done to help a patient experience a better quality of life while living with serious illness.”
Palliative care is patient-centered care; we “put the patient and the family at the heart of every decision and empowering them to be genuine partners in their care.”
“I ask my patients a simple but powerful question,” says Dr. Saggar. “What matters the most to you?”
If you feel you or a loved one would benefit from Palliative Care, talk with your primary care provider to connect you to your local SSM Health Palliative Care team.
