What are the main differences between palliative care definitions?
There are four main ways in which definitions of palliative care may differ. • Palliative care is sometimes defined as solely being care that alleviates pain and other symptoms. With these definitions palliative care does not include any other support for either the patient or their family. • In the 1960s hospices provided palliative care for people who were dying of cancer. As a result palliative care was defined as being care that was provided for people who were not receiving any treatment to actively treat their disease. It has since been realised that many aspects of palliative care are applicable earlier in the course of a disease and that palliative care can, and often should, be provided alongside disease modifying treatment. Some definitions of palliative care such as the one given above, either implicitly or explicitly allow for this. • Palliative care is still sometimes defined as solely being for people with cancer, but palliative care is more often now defined as being for
