Several factors can lead someone to require palliative care, often due to the presence of a serious or life-limiting illness. The primary causes include:
- Advanced or Terminal Illness: When a disease progresses to an advanced stage where curative treatment is no longer effective or desirable, palliative care is introduced to focus on comfort and quality of life. This is common in conditions like metastatic cancer, end-stage heart failure, or advanced neurological diseases.
- Severe Symptom Burden: Individuals experiencing intense symptoms that are difficult to control, such as chronic pain, severe shortness of breath, or persistent nausea, may need palliative care to manage these issues and improve their daily functioning.
- Declining Health: As a person's health deteriorates due to a chronic condition or age-related frailty, palliative care can help manage the complex needs associated with the decline, including physical, emotional, and psychological support.
- Frequent Hospitalisations: Patients who are repeatedly hospitalised for the same condition, indicating a worsening or poorly controlled illness, may benefit from palliative care to stabilise their health and reduce hospital visits.
- Complex Care Needs: When a patient has multiple health issues or a particularly complex medical condition that requires coordinated care from various specialists, palliative care can provide a centralised approach to managing these needs.
- Desire for Comfort-Focused Care: Some individuals may choose to prioritise comfort and quality of life over aggressive treatments that have diminishing returns, opting for palliative care to focus on symptom management and emotional support.
- End-of-Life Planning: Patients and families facing the realities of a terminal diagnosis may seek palliative care to help with end-of-life planning, ensuring that care aligns with the patient’s values and wishes.
Palliative care can be initiated at any point in the course of a serious illness, and it can be provided alongside curative treatments or as the primary focus when cure is no longer possible.
