Benefits of Palliative Care

Palliative Care is specialized and individualized to the patient’s needs to improve quality of life.  Other benefits include:

  • Patients and their families appreciate the opportunity to talk about the illness and what is important to them

  • Hospitalizations and doctors’ visits may decrease

  • Patients and their families understand the progression of the illness and can make decisions about treatment based on their own goals

  • Early Palliative care interventions not only enhance quality of life but may also positively influence the course of illness

Good palliative care is finding a way to walk beside someone living with serious illness. In helping someone facing serious illness, the conversation becomes about what makes life worth living rather than about dying.

— Robin Hirsh-Wright,
Director of Northern Light Palliative Care