Philosophy of Palliative Care

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The Philosophies of Palliative Care

Palliative care came about largely due to the pioneering work of Dame Cicely Saunders in the early 1960's. She brought to attention the end of life care needs of patients with advanced malignant disease and identified the link between physical and emotional suffering. This work was instrumental in drawing attention to the underlying philosophy of palliative care, this included offering the patient social, emotional and spiritual support as well as managing symptoms medically at the stage of end of life. Clark (2007)
'Palliative Care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems physical, psychosocial and spiritual.' This is the definition given by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of Palliative Care in 2002. This was the first time palliative care was not singularly referred to cancer patients only and that palliative care can be applicable whatever the illness. (Lugton 2005)
During the last few years guidance from Nice and the Gold Standards' Framework (GSF) have lead to improvements in the care provided. Travers and Mitchell (2001) suggest that the development of palliative care has a general focus of approach that ‘should form the basis of good care for all people with life limiting illness’ they also suggest that it is the Hospice role that has gone on to develop palliative care as a specialist care.

Palliative Care The Nursing Role second edition Jean Lugton Rosemary McIntyre Page 2 2005 http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=Clark+2007+palliative+care&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=gQOwT8XoL4i38QPXoYmbDA&ved=0CC4QgQMwAA From
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