Palliative care includes care at home or in hospitals, hospices or palliative care units for people whose disease cannot be cured. Palliative care focuses not only on physical symptoms but on emotional well-being, relationships with others and spiritual needs. Palliative care includes more than care for people who are dying. Any treatment that you have for metastatic breast cancer that helps reduce your symptoms and improves your quality of life, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormonal therapies, can also be called palliative care.
Also, specialist palliative care services are available for women with metastatic breast cancer in their home if they need extra support and information. You do not have to be dying to access a specialist palliative care service. A specialist palliative care service can provide:
- Information about drugs used for pain and symptom relief.
- Practical support about how to cope with your symptoms.
- Emotional support for yourself and your family/carers.
A specialist palliative care service may involve a palliative care consultant, a palliative care nurse, a palliative care social worker/counsellor and palliative care volunteers. The team works with your specialist, general practitioner and community nurse to provide you with optimum care. There are benefits in establishing contact with a specialist palliative care service, even while you are relatively well.
Establishing contact with a specialist palliative care service does not prohibit you from having treatments that your doctor recommends. Ask your general practitioner or specialist to refer you to a specialist palliative care service if you feel you would benefit by the extra support and information.
A member of the specialist palliative care team will visit you in your home, or if you are in a hospital, hospice or palliative care unit they can visit you there. They will assess your need for care by a specialist palliative care team.
There is evidence to show that specialist palliative care services improve:
- Patient satisfaction with care.
- Patients being cared for in their place of choice family satisfaction and family anxiety control of pain and other symptoms
- Palliative Care Australia is the national organisation for palliative care in Australia.
For further information:
- Visit their website at www.pallcare.org.au telephone the national office in the ACT on (02) 6232 4433.
