Hospice and palliative care / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Palliative and hospice care for patients suffering severe or end-stage illness with projected short life expectancy.Such services aim to improve patients' quality of life through prognosticating,prevention and treatment of their ailment.The main components include evaluation and treatment of symptoms,pain control,family care,alleviating and treating patients' psychological burden and depression,and offering comfort and dignity.Hospice and palliative care are different from euthanasia,because they neither hasten nor delay the dying process.Instead,they focus on patients'physical and psychological needs and helping patients to maintain their independence and make their own choice.As a new medical subspecialty,palliative and hospice care are considered one of the important frontier in modern medicine.They employ a multi-disciplinary team approach,and the team members require special skill sets including those in communication and symptom management.