Medical Staff

Palliative care treats more than physical symptoms

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, February 7, 2007

An article in the January 29 issue of Physician's Weekly offers tips for improving palliative care. The goals of palliative care include relieving as many symptoms as possible, minimizing suffering, enhancing quality of life, and fulfilling the patient's goals, notes the article.

Providing proper palliative care can be especially challenging because the treatment strategy often revolves around quality of life and comfort rather than a cure, according to the article.

Joshua M. Hauser, MD, is quoted in the article as stating that palliative care involves management of pain and other symptoms as well as emotional and spiritual issues. "Physical discomfort is only a part of the process of dying. It is an important feature, but physicians also need to keep emotional, spiritual, and social needs in mind," he states in the piece.

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