Pearls for Patients: Video Series Explains How Palliative Care Can Help
Are you or a loved one living with a serious illness? If so, it’s normal to have a lot of questions and uncertainty, especially when new words are thrown around by doctors about your health. Whether you have a recent diagnosis, or have been living with your illness for a period of time, you may need help understanding what everything means, from symptoms to side effects, treatment options, and more.
Where can you get this kind of help? One way is with a referral to a palliative care team.
What Exactly is Palliative Care?
Palliative care (pronounced pal-lee-uh-tiv) is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. It focuses on relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. Palliative care is provided by a specially-trained team of doctors, nurses, and other specialists who work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment.
How Palliative Care Can Help: Videos Series Explains
Take a look at these short videos where a team of doctors and nurses explain how palliative care can help you and your loved ones. The videos address some of the most common topics, such as:
When to Ask for Palliative Care – Learn when to ask your doctor for a palliative care referral if you have a serious illness like heart or lung disease, cancer, and others. Hear about the kinds of symptoms or situations that should signal you to ask for palliative care.
Managing the Symptoms of a Serious Illness – Learn about some of the symptoms that a palliative care team can help manage.
The Palliative Care Team – Hear about the different members of the palliative care team and how they work with your other doctors to provide you with an extra layer support.
Family Support – Discover how palliative care helps both the person living with a serious illness and their loved ones.
For more on how palliative care can help you with a specific illness, click here to see the full library of videos.
Where to Find a Palliative Care Team
Palliative care is available in most hospitals and is growing quickly in outpatient clinics. In some areas, palliative care teams are even available for home visits. To find out which hospitals or clinics provide palliative care where you live, search this Palliative Care Provider Directory.
To learn more about how you or your loved one can benefit from palliative care, regardless of the serious illness, visit getpalliativecare.org.
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