Hospice and Palliative Care: An Overview

Paul E Tatum; Sarah S Mills

doi:10.1016/j.mcna.2020.01.001

Hospice and Palliative Care: An Overview

Med Clin North Am. 2020 May;104(3):359-373. doi: 10.1016/j.mcna.2020.01.001.

Authors

Paul E Tatum¹, Sarah S Mills²

Affiliations

¹ Dell Medical School, University of Texas in Austin, 1501 Red River Street, Austin, TX 78701, USA. Electronic address: Paul.Tatum@austin.utexas.edu.
² Dell Medical School, University of Texas in Austin, 1501 Red River Street, Austin, TX 78701, USA.

PMID: 32312403
DOI: 10.1016/j.mcna.2020.01.001

Abstract

Palliative medicine is specialized medical care for people with serious illness. Serious illness is one with high risk of mortality that negatively affects quality of life or function or is burdensome in symptoms, treatments, or caregiver stress. Palliative care improves symptom management and addresses the needs of patients and families, resulting in improved patient and caregiver quality of life and reduced symptom burden and health care utilization. Hospice is palliative care for patients with a prognosis of 6 months or less and is appropriate when goals are to avoid hospitalization and maximize time at home for patients who are dying.

Keywords: End of life; Hospice; Interdisciplinary team; Palliative care; Serious illness.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Caregivers / psychology
Critical Illness / epidemiology
Critical Illness / therapy*
Hospice Care / standards*
Hospices / organization & administration*
Hospices / trends
Humans
Life Expectancy / trends
Palliative Care / standards*
Patient Care Team / ethics
Terminal Care / methods