What Is Palliative Care? Definition, Types, and More

Key takeaways

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people diagnosed with a serious illness such as cancer or heart disease, and it can be integral to a patient’s healing process. Alongside curative treatment, palliative care can enhance the patient’s quality of life. 

• Every year, around 56.8 million people need palliative care. Globally, only 14 percent of those who need palliative care currently receive it [1].

• Palliative care can span supporting physical, emotional, social, and mental aspects of a patient’s health.

• A palliative care team comprises several health care professionals who provide medical, social, emotional, and financial support to the patient and their family. 

Learn more about palliative care and its role in health care with Integrative Health and Medicine specialization by the University of Minnesota.

What is palliative care?

Palliative care refers to the specialized medical care given to patients diagnosed with a serious illness. Provided alongside treatments intended to cure their illness, palliative care aims to enhance a person’s quality of life. It is best provided soon after diagnosis.

A palliative care team comprises several health care professionals who provide medical, social, emotional, and financial support to the patient and their family. This care is provided in hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient clinics, and sometimes at home.

Palliative care can include administering medication, advising changes to nutrition or diet, providing techniques for relaxing and relieving pain, offering emotional support, and more. Each patient case requires a tailored care plan for their unique needs.

Palliative care vs. hospice care

Palliative care is focused on patients seeking treatment for an illness and is delivered at any point from when the patient is diagnosed until doctors determine they can no longer receive treatment for a cure.

If a patient is suffering from a terminal illness with no available treatment and has six months or less to live, then they will be put on hospice care to ensure the patient is comfortable and relaxed in their final days.

Who needs palliative care?

People who need palliative care are patients suffering from symptoms of life-threatening illnesses. They could be living with the following:

• Cancer

• Heart disease

• Blood and bone marrow disorders

• Alzheimer’s

• Kidney failure

• Parkinson’s

• Cystic fibrosis

• Dementia

• Stroke

But those who receive palliative care are not limited to the above. There are many illnesses that can benefit from palliative care.

Symptoms that palliative care may help

Palliative care can provide relief for symptoms such as:

• Pain

• Nausea or vomiting

• Depression or sadness

• Anxiety

• Constipation

• Fatigue

• Loss of appetite

• Trouble sleeping

• Shortness of breath

Types of palliative care

Palliative care comes in many forms, depending on the patient’s needs. These are the types of palliative care and what each looks like in practice.

• Physical: The physical pain and side effects that accompany serious illnesses can feel overwhelming. Palliative care specialists, pain specialists, or sleep therapists might be called in to help manage these symptoms and side effects.

• Social: While experiencing pain, discomfort, or sadness while they are ill, patients may find it difficult to connect with caregivers or family members about how they feel. Social workers offer support by planning family meetings or gathering ride services information.

• Emotional: Patients might feel sad, angry, anxious, and grateful all at once. Emotional palliative care can look like gaining access to a support group or a mental health professional to help them cope with their emotions.

• Mental: Alongside emotional care, illness symptoms, treatments, and medications can affect the mind. Mental health counselors and support groups can suggest yoga, art, walking, and other relaxing activities.

• Spiritual: While suffering from a serious illness such as cancer or dementia, patients may encounter thoughts about nearing death or seeking a greater purpose upon surviving an illness. If a patient belongs to a church, synagogue, or temple, leaders or community members of their faith can help them approach their prognosis in a positive way.

• Financial: Finally, palliative care might come in the form of financial assistance. Hospital bills and treatments can add up. Social workers or financial counselors can review billing and insurance information, help patients apply for disability payments or medical leave, find programs that deliver low-cost medicine, and ideate other financial alternatives.

• Benefits of palliative care

Palliative care can provide the following benefits for patients:

• Support the patient and their family with holistic support of the body, mind, and spirit

• Help patients understand treatment plans (translators or interpreters can be critical to a palliative care team) and pay for them

• Improve their quality of life by relieving pain and symptoms

• Provide referrals to community resources or other types of support

• Extend the life of the patient 

Ultimately, palliative care is beneficial for patients, but it is also cost effective and benefits the health care system. According to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, if palliative care were fully integrated into US hospitals, savings could amount to $6 billion per year [2].

As stated above, only around 14 percent of those who need palliative care receive it, according to the World Health Organization [1]. That number increases when applied to the United States, where up to two-thirds of people who could benefit from palliative care don’t receive it [3]. Studies have consistently shown that palliative care can have substantial benefits for patients, according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, 13 million adults and 700,000 children in the US could benefit from palliative care [2].

Careers in palliative care

Because palliative care addresses physical, emotional, and social needs, it requires a multidisciplinary team of professionals. Roles within a palliative care team may include physicians, nurses, social workers, or counselors. To learn more about different medical careers, read 38 Jobs in the Medical Field: Form Practitioners to Support Staff.

Continue learning about palliative care 

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• Watch a career spotlight video on medical office management 

• Read about 7 public health careers worth exploring

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