Palliative Care
It focuses broadly on improving life and providing comfort to people of all ages with serious, chronic, and life-threatening illnesses. Typically, a palliative care team includes a physician, nurse, and social worker. But it often involves a chaplain,psychologist or psychiatrist, physical or occupational therapist, dietitian, and others, depending on the patient's needs. Palliative care is provided where the person and their family wants, where possible. This may include: -At home -In hospital -In a hospiceIn -A residential aged care facility Is it really effective? In a study published in August 2010 in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital found that advanced lung cancer patients who received early palliative care actually had lower rates of depression and better quality of life than patients who received standard treatment only. Source: WebMD