Patient Care
What is palliative care?
WHO defined palliative care as follows.
“Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life (QOL) of patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illness. It prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification, correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual.”
This statement fully contains our values.
“Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life (QOL) of patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illness. It prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification, correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual.”
This statement fully contains our values.
- Palliative care is for patients with not only cancer but also any life-threating diseases.
- Palliative care is not only for patients but also for their families; that is, it focuses on the distress in the family as well.
- Palliative care is required to cope with holistic pain including “physical distress” (physical pain), “psychological problems” (mental pain), “social problems” (works, life, etc.), and “spiritual pain” caused by a lack of self-affirmation.
- Palliative care is “an approach that improves the QOL of patients… prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification, correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems” as above. Randomized control trials subjected to patients of non-small cell lung cancer shown that early specialized palliative care significantly improved the patients’ QOL and their mood, and prolong survival.
About opioid
There is no need to worry that appropriate medical use of narcotic drugs shorten life expectancy or cause addiction. Appropriate use of narcotic drugs such as morphine is effective for pain relief, especially “cancer related pain”, and “difficulty breathing.” It is important to be aware that we should not consider using narcotic drugs depending on the progression of a disease but should use them for relieving pain and improving the patients’ QOL.
Promotion of team medical care
In our palliative care center, we practice team medical care with various medical staff (doctors in palliative care, psychiatry and anesthesiology as well as nurses, pharmacists, dieticians, clinical phycologists, physical therapists, and medical social workers). Furthermore, we expand our care in cooperation with patients’ attending/consulting doctors and staff in both outpatient and inpatient sections.
We focus on “distress” in patients and their families, and support them to think ahead about their life. As a regional designated cancer hospital, we strive to become an advisor on palliative care in our community.
We focus on “distress” in patients and their families, and support them to think ahead about their life. As a regional designated cancer hospital, we strive to become an advisor on palliative care in our community.
Number of Palliative Care Support Team Interventions
The number of cancer patients referred from other departments has increased to more than 300 cases
since2015. In FY2020, 400 or more cases were referred to us. The monthly average of new referred patients are
28 cases for the last five years. The number of referred patients with non-cancerous diseases including heart
failure, intractable diseases, etc. is on increase as well.
since2015. In FY2020, 400 or more cases were referred to us. The monthly average of new referred patients are
28 cases for the last five years. The number of referred patients with non-cancerous diseases including heart
failure, intractable diseases, etc. is on increase as well.
Top 10 patient count by cancer sites in FY2020 at our team