[nick__m]

Could you define palliative care, please ?

I to tought that it was a branch of medicine dedicated to the relief of the suffering of those who are afflicted with a disease that will eventually kill them. But clearly you indicate that it's more than that so I would like to know.

[breckenedge]

Her elevator speech definition: Palliative care is a whole person approach to medicine for patients with a terminal diagnosis who are still undergoing active treatment.

[mindslight]

FWIW definitions like that didn't help me understand what palliative care means in practice or what it would have done for me as a caregiver, apart from its well-defined subset of hospice. People kept asking me if I had considered "palliative care", but could never define what it was. I don't think that was just a polite way of saying hospice - it was a distinct group at the same VNA. It didn't help that this palliative team I tried talking to was small and there was some administrative weirdness. In the end it didn't matter for me - full on hospice was definitively appropriate, and they did their job very well. But in the interests of helping others in a similar situation, more concrete explanations of the mechanics would help!

[nick__m]

thank you