The goal of palliative care is to improve quality of life. Palliative care specialists treat people living with many disease types and chronic illnesses. These include cancer, cardiac disease such as congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), kidney failure, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and many more.
Palliative care focuses on the symptoms and stress of the disease and the treatment. It treats a wide range of issues that can include pain, depression, anxiety, fatigue, shortness of breath, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite and difficulty sleeping.
Palliative care teams improve your quality of life. They do this by helping you tolerate medical treatments, helping you match your goals to your treatment choices, supporting your family caregivers and more.