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Palliative care (derived from the Latin root palliare, meaning "to cloak") is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. [1] Within the published literature, many definitions of palliative care exist.
Palliative care is supported by the Hospice Palliative Care Association of South Africa and by national programmes partly funded by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. [41] Hospice Africa Uganda (HAU), founded by Anne Merriman, began offering services in 1993 in a two-bedroom house loaned for the purpose by Nsambya Hospital. [41]
Palliative care got its start as hospice care delivered largely by caregivers at religious institutions. The first formal hospice was founded in 1948 by the British physician Dame Cicely Saunders in order to care for patients with terminal illnesses. [2] She defined key physical, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of distress in her work.
Hospices exist to provide comfort to people who doctors determine are at the end of their lives, with six months or less to live. The paramount objective, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, a trade association, is to make patients comfortable, with a focus “on enhancing the quality of remaining life.”
Home care was provided by palliative support teams, and each hospital and care home recognized to have a palliative support team. In 1999, Belgium ranked second (after the United Kingdom) in the number of palliative care beds per capita. In 2001, there was an active palliative care support team in 72% of hospitals and a specialized nurse or ...
The goal of hospice agencies in the United States is to provide comfort to the patient and heighten quality of life. [15] How comfort is defined is up to the patient or, if the patient is incapacitated, the patient's family. This can mean freedom from physical, emotional, spiritual and/or social pain.