Palliative Care v. Hospice Care
Courtney Carter
/ Categories: WELLNESS, 2024

Palliative Care v. Hospice Care

The Differences and Benefits

When facing a serious illness, understanding your care options can make a world of difference. While the terms palliative care and hospice are often used interchangeably, they’re distinctly different types of care, each focusing on a different step in an individual’s care and end-of-life journey.

Simply put, palliative care focuses on maintaining the highest quality of life while managing treatment and other needs while hospice care focuses on the period closest to death.

Here’s a deeper dive into how each supports individuals and families facing serious illness and end of life.

 

What is Palliative Care

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness, such as cancer, dementia, COPD, and heart failure. Often called supportive care, palliative care focuses improving quality of life and helping with symptoms.

Because people receiving palliative care may receive medical care for their symptoms along with treatment intended to cure their illness, palliative care aims to help patients understand their choices for medical treatment.

In addition to addressing medical needs, palliative care focuses on the emotional, spiritual, and social needs of the patient and their family. This all-encompassing care is typically provided by a team of specially trained doctors, nurses and other specialists who work to connect patients and families with the resources they need and minimize the disruptions their illness or treatments may cause in daily life.  

Key aspects of palliative care include:

  • Pain and symptom management

  • Help with setting care priorities and preferences

  • Support for patients and loved ones throughout the illness journey

  • Assistance with advance care planning

Palliative care can be provided in a variety of settings, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, and at home.

The benefits of palliative care have been well-researched and documented. Beyond empowering individuals to control their care and quality of life, palliative care is associated with:

 

What is Hospice Care

Hospice care is specialized care for those in the last phase of a terminal illness when curative measures are no longer pursued; typically for those with a life expectancy of six months or less. 

While individuals in hospice do not receive curative treatments for their illness(es), they can get treatment that enhances quality of life. This may include medication for high blood pressure, anxiety, and pain and even special services like speech or physical therapy.

Key aspects of hospice care include:

  • Round-the-clock access to care

  • Pain and symptom relief

  • Emotional and spiritual support for patients and families

  • Bereavement services for loved ones

It’s important to note that if a patient’s condition improves or they decide they wish to resume curative care, they may leave and return to hospice care later.

Hospice care can be provided at home, in hospice centers, or other facilities.

The benefits of hospice care include:

  • Relief suffering

  • Help with medical and non-medical needs

  • Promotion of dignity

  • Support for family and caregivers

  • Closure for patients and families

 

By understanding palliative and hospice care, you and your loved ones can make informed decisions that are in line with your goals, values, and preferences.

For tips on talking to loved ones about serious illness and care—theirs or your own—click here. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to relay any wishes and decisions to the appropriate healthcare provider.

While these conversations may be difficult, it’s important to keep the end goal in mind: preserving personal comfort, dignity, and making the most of your time.

 

Allen Hutcheson, MD, is a family medicine physician and palliative care specialist at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. 

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Home Office How To

Did you know that many sources of chronic pain start in a poorly arranged office? Carpal tunnel, pinched nerves, overuse injuries can often be traced to chairs being positioned improperly or important tools being positioned outside easy reach. While reaching or straining once or twice wouldn't hurt us at all, doing so repeatedly day after day can cause painful and lasting injuries.

As an occupational health physician at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, one of my responsibilities is to help employees of SVMC and other companies who have workplace injuries and recommend the adjustments they should make.

During a spike in work-from-home arrangements, I have heard about friends’ and family members' work-from-home set-ups. Some are working from laptops on their couches. Others are set up at kitchen tables. We know that their cats walk across their keyboards and their kids interrupt. Especially since Governor Scott has just indicated that remote workers will likely be the last to return to the traditional workplace, it's time to get our home office arrangements figured out.

That's why I would like to share the important details you need to arrange a healthful workspace and encourage all to invest the time (and sometimes a little bit of money) needed to implement them. Learning these points is key to avoiding injuries, as continued work-from-home policies, where feasible, will help maintain appropriate distancing needed to decrease the spread of COVID-19.

An adjustable chair is the first and most important component of an office set-up. Office chairs include crucial lumbar support and encourage good posture. When your forearms are resting on your desk or table, adjust the chair height up or down until your arms form a right angle. This is an important step in avoiding wrist pain and carpal tunnel, two of the most common office injuries. If, when your arms are in the correct position, your feet are not touching the floor, employ a footstool.

Position your monitor an arm’s length away. (If you can't see the screen from this distance, better go get an eye exam!) And raise the screen so that the top of the screen is eye level. This, too, will encourage good posture.

If you use two monitors, positioning them properly depends on how you use them. If you use them equally, the dividing line between them should be right in front of you. If you use one primarily and the other secondarily, position the more dominant screen directly in front of you. If you use a laptop, consider investing in a riser and an additional keyboard needed to raise the screen to eye level.

Put all of your other tools, including your mouse and phone, within easy reach. If you use the phone a lot, consider investing in a headset.

The only other recommendation I make is to stretch every 15 – 20 minutes. A list of helpful office-oriented stretches is available here. And every hour, be sure to get up and take a short walk or standing stretch.

If you follow these recommendations at home, you will be much more comfortable and are likely to be more productive, too, all while maintaining the social distance we need to keep COVID-19 infections low throughout this next phase of the pandemic. Most importantly, you will save yourself the pain and discomfort of office injury no matter where you're working.

Mark Zimpfer, MD, is a physician at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center's Occupational Health practice. 

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