Hospice Palliative Care

Hospice palliative care offers services to help relieve suffering and improve quality of life for people with a life-limiting illness or those grieving a loved one. Hospice palliative care becomes appropriate when treatment no longer supports quality of life.

Making the transition to hospice palliative care can be difficult. You and your family may have spent many months or years concentrating on a cure.

What is hospice palliative care?

People who choose hospice palliative care have made the decision with their doctor and family to move away from getting better to palliative, or comfort, care.

Hospice palliative care:

• Does not hasten or delay death
• Improves the quality life by offering comfort and dignity
• Offers comfort, emotional and spiritual supports to the person and family
• Allows people to continue receiving treatments that slow the progress of the disease and reduce uncomfortable symptoms
• Provides a variety of services designed to provide care and comfort

Medical intervention is for symptom management, including pain control.

Many people mistakenly associate hospice palliative care only with sorrow. However, most people’s experiences include times of joy, peace and heart-warming closeness. People often comment that hospice experiences, although involving a death, give them a deeper understanding of life.

Where is hospice palliative care offered?

Hospice palliative care is available in the community, at home, in assisted living and residential care facilities and in hospice residences.

Are palliative and hospice care different?

In Canada, we tend to use both terms interchangeably to refer to a specific approach to care for people who have a life-limiting illness or are terminally ill.

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