Comfort with Life Quality

Palliative Medicine at Crouse Hospital:

• Provides the potential for relief from pain and other distressing symptoms.
• Includes emotional and spiritual support.
• Promotes patient autonomy and dignity.
• Offers support to the family during the patient’s illness, as well as helps them grieve the loss of the loved one, including the needs of children.
• Affirms life and does not attempt to hasten or postpone death.
• Regards dying as part of the life cycle.
• Offers hope and support, encouraging people to make the most of the time they have together.

Hospice and palliative medicine are slightly different. While both help to ensure quality of life, provide family support and keep patient pain and other symptoms to a minimum, hospice is intended for terminally ill patients who can no longer benefit from medical treatments and are expected to live for six months or less.

Palliative Medicine, however, is available for anyone diagnosed with a serious illness, at any time during that illness, even if the patient is expected to live for years. Patients receiving Palliative Medicine services may still opt to receive aggressive, curative treatments, or they may wish to simply remain comfortable with minimal pain. The goal of palliative care is to relieve pain and aid in the psychosocial and emotional aspects of a life-limiting illness.