Here with Answers – Understanding Hospice and Palliative Care
It’s About How You Live
Life should not be measured by the number of days, but quality of days.
Hospice and palliative (pronounced PAL-lee-uh-tiv) care are considered models of quality, compassionate care for people facing a life-limiting illness or injury. At Hospice Buffalo, we believe that everyone coping with serious illness deserves to direct their course of care and to fully live in comfort, with grace, dignity and peace.
Difference Between Palliative Care and Hospice
Both palliative care and hospice care provide comfort, but hospice can only begin when it is apparent that the person is not going to survive and treatment of the disease has stopped; palliative care can begin at diagnosis, and at the same time as treatment.
Hospice vs. Palliative Care
The key differences between hospice and palliative care include payment and when and where the support is provided.
Although the criteria to be enrolled in hospice and palliative care differs, both services manage symptoms to help keep your loved one comfortable. Both share a holistic and integrative approach to the care by treating the whole person — physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Both types of care focus on relieving symptoms, pain and stress, for the patient, their caregivers, and their family.
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5 Common Goals of Hospice and Palliative Care
- Provide relief from pain and symptoms to improve the quality of life.
- Treats the whole person – physically, emotionally, and spiritually – providing a holistic approach to care.
- Encourages patient and family participation in the plan of care.
- Helps patients live as actively as possible.
- Offers support to help the family and caregivers cope.
How do I know if I qualify?
When to seek Hospice Care
Hospice Care is for people with an expected prognosis of 6 months or less and no longer wish to receive treatments. Download Hospice Myths & Facts flyer.
When to seek Palliative Care
Palliative Care is for people with chronic or progressive illness who are suffering from symptoms or treatment side-effects. It is available at any stage during an illness — it does not require a limited prognosis.
Palliative Care: YOU are a BRIDGE
History of Palliative Care
In the 1960s, Dame Cecily Saunders developed the modern hospice movement in Great Britain. In the 1970s, a Canadian oncologist, Dr. Balfour Mount, started incorporating the principles of hospice into patient care before people approached the end of life. He coined the term “palliative care.” Learn More
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