The need for palliative care teams

Abstract

Abstract This book is about taking and adapting the philosophy of care developed within hospice units and applying it to the hospital environment. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care as the active total care of patients whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment. Control of pain, of other symptoms, and of psychological, social, and spiritual problems is paramount. The book focuses on peripatetic hospital-based palliative care teams because they seek to upgrade terminal care without assuming control of patients. This chapter describes how the care of the dying became neglected, the modern hospice movement, terminal illness and hospitals, why patients die in hospitals, the needs of patients, the needs of relatives, the needs of professional carers, and translating needs into team objectives.