Palliative vs Hospice
The Definition of Palliative Care vs. Hospice Care
It is crucial to differentiate between palliative and hospice care. People often confuse these care services. Palliative care is given from the point of being diagnosed with serious illness such as cancer, throughout cancer treatment to survivorship. On the contrary, hospice care includes palliative care with it. However, the two can be separated as different services.
Palliative care vs. hospice- defining palliative.
Palliative care can be rendered to patients with life limiting illnesses, this refers to non-terminal patients in their preferred location. Palliative care service can start from the time the patient becomes diagnosed with the illness with intention to support people to live longer, happier lives.
As mentioned above, palliative care is included within hospice care to make patients comfortable. However, for non-terminal patients, palliative care is about symptom management and managing the side-effects of life limiting and chronic illness. This is to say, you can receive palliative care at the same time you receive the acute treatment meant to cure your illness.
Life limiting illnesses are not limited to cancer, they include heart failure, kidney failure, COPD, HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis and many others. However, as the first phase of our services, we are dealing with cancer patients until further notice.
Palliative care can be given to an individual at any stage of an illness, whereas hospice care is only appropriate at a stage the illness is deemed terminal-at an end-of-life (EOL) stage.
Hospice vs. palliative care -defining hospice.
In our continuous attempt to clarify the differences between palliative and hospice care; it is essential to appreciate that hospice care refers to care during person’s last months of life or less. Hospice care steps in when curative treatment is no longer an option. Hospice care team’s priority is to make the patient’s life as comfortable as possible. That includes palliative care (pain and symptom management) as the aim at this time is comfort care throughout the time that’s left.
Hospice can be defined as the program of care and can be delivered at anywhere the patient is for example at patient’s home, in which case we offer support via our Hospice@Home program or can be delivered at the inpatient hospice unit once we have managed to build one.
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