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What is end-of-life care?
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End-of-life care for people with cancer consists of continued physical, mental and emotional care provided after medical testing and treatment is stopped when the cancer can no longer be controlled.
This type of care provides comfort at the patient’s end of life and also focuses on the patient’s family members. End-of-life care is available in the hospital setting or another health care setting as well as at home.
During the planning of end-of-life care, the patient and family members make decisions about where the patient prefers to spend their final days, the types of care and treatments they will receive, and the overall goals of care, which may include the types of medicines they prefer to use during their care.
Patients undergoing end-of-life care are recommended to complete advance directives, which are documents that state a person’s request for care as well as who the patient chooses as their care decision-maker once they are too ill to make decisions on their own.
End-of-life care services are most commonly provided with hospice. The services can be used as much as 6 months prior to end of life. Various studies have concluded patients using end-of-life care report higher quality of life than patients who do not.
Additional information may be found at these websites:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Support/end-of-life-care
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/endoflifeissues.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/advancedirectives.html