This is one of the most common questions I hear as a palliative care physician. Most people either have no idea what palliative care is, or they have the WRONG idea. So let’s talk about what palliative care really is, and how it can help you.

Palliative care provides an extra layer of support whether you’re living with cancer, heart failure, dementia or any other illness impacting your life. It’s available to anyone at any point in their illness – regardless of your life expectancy!

What an “extra layer of support” looks like to YOU will depend on what’s important to YOU, but here are a few things palliative care teams can do for you:

1. Manage symptoms related to your illness like pain and nausea

2. Improve communication between you and your doctor, as well as between your doctor and your other doctor (and your other doctor and your other doctor… 🙃)

3. Coordinate care by making sure your plans make sense for you and all the logistics in your life

4. Offer guidance about what to expect in the future and how to make plans around what is most important to you

5. Support your choices, whatever they happen to be, and validate their emotional impact

6. Relieve suffering by making sure no matter what happens your humanity is honored and preserved

One last thing – some doctors will try and tell you it’s “too soon” for palliative care. These tend to be the doctors that still think your life expectancy needs to be beyond a certain point in order to bring all this support to you. You may need to tell your doctor “hey I’m not talking about a shift to comfort care, I’m just looking for more support alongside my other treatments”

Keep advocating! 💪🏻