Palliative Care

What is Palliative Care?

Simply put, palliative care helps patients who need symptoms, pain and stress management when it is associated with a serious illness. Patients can receive palliative care in any setting: a private residence, a senior living community, assisted living or long-term care community.

HAP Foundation staff members are experts at pain and symptom management. At the HAP Foundation, palliative care is provided by an advance practice nurse (APN) with oversight from physicians. In collaboration with your existing physicians, our Palliative Care Program strives to prevent avoidable visits to the emergency room and reduce expensive hospital stays. Our team provides an extra layer of support, focusing on identifying sources of pain and discomfort, and providing recommendations for treatment options that can offer relief.

In addition to relieving pain and symptoms, our palliative care team helps you and your family understand your illness and the available care options, while also helping you identify personalized treatment goals. We provide specialized, high-quality care that can help improve quality of life, while your physicians work to manage or cure your condition.

When is Palliative Care the right choice?

The HAP Foundation Palliative Care Program may be the next step to help better manage your symptoms when living with serious illness, such as:

  • terminal cancer (stage 4)
  • end-stage congestive heart failure (NYHA class 4)
  • chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
  • other life-limiting illnesses that cause pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite and more

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Resources

Understanding the Situation

If you or someone close to you has just received a diagnosis, or you have been living with a serious health issue for some time, it may be helpful to stop and think about the following: Make a List of Your Questions. Some of your questions may be answered as you read information provided here.…

What is Palliative Care?

People with serious illnesses often live with physical and emotional pain. Palliative care is specialized medical care that helps to manage patient symptoms, focuses on improving quality of life for both the patient and their family, and makes living with a serious illness easier.  The palliative care team works with the individual’s current doctors to…

Selecting a Palliative Care Provider

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with a serious illness, are having difficulty managing symptoms, or have had multiple hospitalizations or emergency room visits, palliative care may make your life and that of your family much easier. A more in-depth overview of palliative care and the support it can provide can be found…

What is Hospice Care?

The goal of hospice is to allow people with a life-limiting illness to live fully and comfortably with the precious time they have left. A hospice team will focus on the quality of life of the whole person and provide pain management, emotional and spiritual support tailored to meet the wishes and needs of the…

Selecting a Hospice Provider

Just like selecting any other medical care, if you or someone you care about needs the support of hospice, it is important to find a provider that is a good fit. Click here to learn more about hospice care. There may be a number of organizations that provide care in your area. If your doctor…