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In the Field Now: Palliative and End of Life Care

Jewish Home Lifecare's Research Institute on Aging explores the best means to deliver palliative care.
In the Field Now: Palliative and End of Life Care
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In the Field Now: Palliative and End of Life Care

Discussions about the new health care legislation have highlighted palliative care, with much of the dialog debunking the notion of  “death  panels.”  Jewish Home Lifecare’s Research Institute on Aging is stepping beyond the fray to determine the best ways to deliver palliative care.

With funding from the Alzheimer’s Association, a team is testing the benefits of a structured approach to palliative care for residents with advanced dementia.  Preliminary findings show that discussions of end of life options including resuscitation, artificial nutrition or hydration, or how to treat pain or trouble breathing are associated with better care rating scores by family members.  A full report will be issued on completion of the study.

Source:

Testing a Structured Palliative Care Intervention in the Nursing Home: Joann P. Reinhardt, PhD, Eileen R. Chichin, PhD, RN, Laurie Posner, M.D.  Presented at the 63rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, New Orleans, LA.

Hospice vs. Palliative Care:

Palliative care and hospice care are often discussed together, but there are distinctions:

Palliative care is an approach to care for people with chronic or end-stage illness that focuses on symptom relief and psycho-social and spiritual support.  Palliative care can be provided at any time in the course of an illness, no matter how long the person is expected to live, and may be used along with curative treatments.

Hospice, on the other hand, uses the same comfort-focused approach but is limited to those with a terminal prognosis (i.e., six months or less) after attempts at cure have ceased. All hospice is palliative care, but not all palliative care is hospice. Both palliative care and hospice can be provided in the home or in an inpatient setting such as a nursing home.

The goal of both palliative care and hospice is to minimize or eliminate suffering and support the best possible quality of life for patients and their families.