Palliative Care

Palliative care approaches are designed to promote comfort, pain control, and quality of life for persons facing serious illness. The growing number of frail older adults with multiple comorbid illnesses is contributing to the need for comprehensive, integrated, and culturally sensitive approaches to the provision of palliative care services. Palliative care teams, consisting of physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other medical professionals, work together to address these complex issues by tackling physical, psychosocial, and spiritual sources of pain. Promising new research suggests enhanced outcomes following palliative care approaches, but improved social policies are needed to ensure access to comprehensive and integrated palliative care services.