Dr. Carolyn Lefkowits spoke to Cure about the difference between palliative and hospice care
Palliative care, often confused with hospice or “end-of-life,” is offered alongside anticancer therapy in order to provide cancer pain relief, reduce the effect of symptoms and stress, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.
Learn more about palliative care at CU Gynecologic Oncology
Palliative care is “to augment — not replace, not undermine, but augment — the care that traditional oncology services can provide to enhance the comprehensiveness of the care for patients,” says Lefkowits. “It takes some of this supportive care off the plate of the oncologists, and it is greatly underutilized.”
Playing their parts in the disconnect and confusion surrounding hospice and palliative care is a lack of education about what exactly is palliative care and the lack of national programs. Until a few years ago, there was not even a defined curriculum for palliative care. Now, physician fellowships, where this type of care can be learned, are up and running.
“Maybe they don’t have uncontrolled pain that day, but maybe six months later they do,” Lefkowits says of patients. “If you’ve oriented them to the option of seeing a supportive care specialist for symptom management, then when they do develop those symptoms, they can recognize that they have unmet needs.”