Palliative care is specialized medical care that focuses on relieving the symptoms and stress of any serious illness, colorectal cancer included. Palliative care seeks to improve the quality of a patient’s life and can be administered side-by-side with curative treatment, such as chemotherapy or surgery.

Hospice care, on the other hand, is treatment focused entirely on providing patients with comfort without the addition of treatments intended to cure. Hospice care is often only offered within the last six months of life, whereas palliative care can be offered at the time of diagnosis, even when the patient may be expected to live for years.

Palliative care is provided by a specialty care team consisting of physicians, nurses, and other specialists who work alongside the patient’s other doctors, like oncologists. The palliative care team provides dedicated care for symptom management, and extra time for you to discuss your treatment goals and options. Your team may also include social workers, chaplains, physical therapists, or other specialists like dietitians or wound care nurses.

The team’s focus is to improve your quality of life and optimize your care. To accomplish this, they will work with your existing care team and help coordinate your treatment.

You do not need to have a special diagnosis, or a certain stage of cancer to seek and receive palliative care. Palliative care is for any patient who finds that the symptoms and stresses of their disease are causing a significant impact on their quality of life.

In fact, seeking care early in your treatment may provide better results and proactively reduce the amount of discomfort and stress that you experience during treatment.

Most public and private insurances, including Medicare and Medicaid, will cover at least an inpatient consultation with a palliative care specialist. Most will also cover community-based palliative care services.

Palliative care is increasingly recognized as an important and mainstream component of excellent cancer care. If you’re curious about better managing the symptoms and stress associated with your illness, consider asking for a consultation with a palliative care team.

The goal of the palliative care team is to meet the needs of you and your family. If you’ve decided to utilize palliative care, expect your first visits with the team to consist of lots of conversations. The team will take the time to get to know you and your needs. Come prepared with your concerns and what you’re hoping to get out of care.

A palliative care team is an interdisciplinary team, which means multiple professionals of differing backgrounds will be working together and communicating frequently about how you are doing, how your care is progressing, problems you have been facing, and how the team can best help you. They will also be in communication with other members of your care team to ensure coordination and cooperation in all aspects of your treatment and care.

Your palliative care team will help you through treatment and can provide insight and understanding about the treatment options available to you and how they fit in with your treatment goals. As your team gets to know you and what’s important to you, they will help you make the decisions that are in your best interest.

A growing number of hospitals and outpatient cancer centers offer palliative care consultation services, and many hospice programs have been expanded to offer palliative care as well.

If you’re unsure how to access care, ask your provider or speak with a social worker in your healthcare system – both should be able to provide you with more information. It’s also good to remember that a palliative approach to your care can be incorporated by your own oncologist that you are already familiar with.

If you’re curious or undecided about what palliative care can offer you, take the time to meet with a team and see what they have to offer. You aren’t required to accept their recommendations or move forward, but you may find out about services you were unaware of, or that they can help you receive and manage your care in a way that supports both you and your family.