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Pain and Palliative Care PDF Print E-mail

What is Palliative Care?

  • Provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
  • Affirms life and treats dying as a normal process
  • Intended to neither hasten or postpone death
  • Combines the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care
  • Offers a support system to patients to live an active life as possible until death
  • Offers a support system to help the family cope during the patients illness and in their own bereavement
  • Uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, may even include bereavement counseling
  • Will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of the illness
  • Is applicable early in the course of illness, in combination with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.


Why Palliative Care?

Palliative care improvises the quality of life of patients and families, who face life-threatening illness, by providing pain and symptom relief, spiritual and psychosocial support from diagnosis to the end of life and bereavement. The purpose of palliative care is to:

  • Develop treatment plans
  • Manage pain and other symptoms
  • Offer emotional support
  • Help deal with end-of-life issues

Effective approaches to palliative care are available to improve the quality of life for cancer patients.

The 5 Goals of Palliative Care

  1. To treat pain and other physical symptoms caused by cancer or its treatment
  2. To address a person’s spiritual needs or concerns
  3. To address a person’s social needs, including financial concerns and practical needs, such as   transportation
  4. To treat a person’s psychosocial needs, such as mood changes and depression
  5. To provide support for the patient’s family, friends, and caregivers, which continues beyond the patient’s death

Palliative Care Group Members Include:
Doctor – Acts as team leader, makes treatment decisions and decides medication treatment
Nurse – Provides direct care to patients, assists in managing pain and other side effects
Social Worker – Helps with financial issues and arranges family meetings
Hospital Chaplain or other spiritual advisor – Counsels the patient/family members on religious and spiritual matters
Dietician – Helps with nutritional concerns
Physical Therapist – Helps the patient with movement and mobility
Grief or Bereavement Coordinator – Helps with planning memorial services and counseling for family members.


Palliative Care at UCLA

At UCLA, the Palliative Care Services (a program in the Division of Geriatrics within the Department of Medicine) offers inpatient consultation to physicians for patients hospitalized at both the UCLA-Ronald Reagan and UCLA-Santa Monica hospitals. There are separate, but similar services offered at each hospital and they are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The services target patients with serious chronic illness including those with:

    * Refractory symptoms including pain, dyspnea, nausea, anxiety, etc.

    * Frequent hospital admissions or emergency department visits

    * Prolonged length of stay (7-14 days) without evidence of improvement

    * Prolonged ICU stay (more than 7 days) with poor prognosis or without evidence of improvement

    * Team/patient/family needs for help with complex decision making and determination of goals of care

    * Assistance with hospice eligibility and referral

    * Unaddressed spiritual or psychosocial issues

Patients, families and other health care professionals are encouraged to ask their hospital attending physician for a Palliative Care referral or consultation. Currently, the Palliative Care service does not offer ambulatory care services our outpatient consultations, and the service does not operate a hospital ward service. For more information or to request a consultation, physicians and other health professionals may contact the Palliative Care Administrative Office at (310) 319-5112.


Center for East-West Medicine at UCLA for Pain Management

The UCLA Center for East-West Medicine offers acupuncture and integrates modern western medicine with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The clinicians are trained and are knowledgeable in both western biomedicine and TCM. The principles and techniques of these two medical systems are integrated within a clinical environment as acupuncturists and medical doctors work together at all stages of patient care and management.

The clinicians are committed to providing compassionate, efective, and accessible care to patients. To optimize patient care, the clinicians individualize the course of treatment for each patient and these may include trigger point injections, acupuncture, massage, herbal dietary advice as well as medication adjustment. In addition, patients may be instructed in Tai-Chi and Qi-Gong exercises, stretching exercises, and acupressure in order to complement the treatment they are receiving. Please visit their website or call their office at (310) 998-9118 for more information.
 
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