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.
With the increasing lifespan and advanced diagnostic modalities the incidence of cancer has peaked in the past decade with early detection and curative treatments which include surgery,chemotherapy and radiation therapy. However at each stage of therapy patient suffers from PAIN both physical and mental pain.Palliative care considers this biopsychosocial aspect of pain and treats the individual from all these types of pain. Treatment includes analgesics ranging from mild pain killers to strong opioids like morphin depending on the severity of the pain.The caregivers too are counselled and given training to manage the patient at home. The goal is to reduce the cancer pain completely or partially using combination of various medicines and make their life comfortable so that they live painfree and die with dignity.