Palliative Care in Tuscaloosa
Maintain Quality of Life & Relief from Pain
At DCH Health System, our palliative care team helps patients and families facing serious illness live with less pain and more comfort - without giving up hope, and without giving up treatment. Whether you're newly diagnosed or managing a long-term condition, our team works alongside your existing doctors to support you every step of the way.
What Is Palliative Care?
Palliative care is specialized medical care focused on relieving pain and other symptoms of a serious illness - while you continue treatment for the illness itself. It's for anyone facing a serious or advanced diagnosis, at any stage, and at any age, working alongside your existing doctors to manage symptoms and support your quality of life.
This is done through comprehensive treatment of symptoms, both from the illness itself and from side effects of medical treatments, such as:
- Pain management
- Fatigue
- Nausea
- Loss of appetite
- Shortness of breath
- Difficulty sleeping
- Other symptoms
Because being diagnosed with an advanced illness can bring about mental or spiritual stressors as well, palliative care also focuses on providing psychological and spiritual support, which is why it is appropriate for ANY serious or advanced illness, no matter the diagnosis.
How Your Family Is Involved in Your Care
Palliative care also considers the patient and the family as part of the care team, so we work to help them communicate with their physicians to better understand their diseases and how they might progress. Patients and families face many difficult decisions about treatment options when they are living with serious illnesses and it can be overwhelming to fully understand what those options are and whether they are the right choices for them. With the palliative care team on board, patient’s and family’s goals are prioritized and supported when they are facing these major medical decisions, as the team can help them make sense of their illness experience.
Palliative Care vs. Hospice Care
Palliative care and hospice are often confused because both focus on comfort and quality of life, but they serve different purposes at different points in an illness.
Palliative care can be part of your treatment plan from the day you're diagnosed, no matter what that diagnosis is or how it's expected to progress. Hospice care is specifically for the end stage of a terminal illness, after treatment aimed at curing or controlling the disease has ended.
Adding palliative care to your team doesn't mean you or your doctors are giving up, and it doesn't mean hospice is next. Many patients receive palliative care for months or years while continuing active treatment. If your illness progresses to the point where hospice becomes the right conversation to have, your care team can talk through what that means and help you understand your options.
Palliative Care FAQs
A Team Approach to Palliative Care
In addition to our medical director, nurse practitioner, and care coordinator, your DCH Palliative Care team includes YOU, YOUR FAMILY, and your primary medical team, to meet your various healthcare needs and to all work together to help you achieve your goals of care. For patients being treated for cancer at Manderson Cancer Center, this team may also include our Supportive Care program.
Ask your doctor or care team about DCH Palliative Care and how our team can support you and your family throughout your care journey.
