Palliative care
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Date
Authors
Van Aardt, M.C. (Matthys Cornelis)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
In House Publications
Abstract
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines
palliative care as care aimed at improving the quality
of life of patients and their families confronted with
the challenges associated with a terminal illness, by
way of preventing and relieving suffering through
early recognition and dealing with physical,
psychosocial and spiritual difficulties. The current
WHO definition is given in Box 1.1
While care provided by hospice is regarded as
palliative care, not all palliative care provided is in a
hospice. Palliative care can be delivered to patients at
any point during the course of a life-threatening
illness, even simultaneous with curative or lifeprolonging
therapies.2 Palliative care can be offered in
any setting and is not dependant on high-level
equipment, classy buildings or technology.
Description
Keywords
World Health Organization (WHO), Terminal illness, Quality of life (QoL), Patients
Sustainable Development Goals
Citation
Van Aardt, M.C. 2017, 'Palliative care', Obstetrics and Gynaecology Forum, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 18-22.