Palliative Care Services from Past to Present

*Murat Can Mollaoğlu, Döne Günay and Mukadder Mollaoğlu*

### **Abstract**

Palliative care (PC) refers to all services provided to make the remaining life of a patient meaningful and valuable. It is recommended that palliative care that is applied to improve the life quality of the patients should not be based only on the diagnosis and prognosis of the disease but also on the need of the patients. Even, palliative care was administered only in the late stages of diseases in the past, but these days it is recommended to be administered in addition to therapies starting from the diagnosis of life-threatening diseases. Palliative care requires a multidisciplinary team approach consisting of professionals who serve for a common purpose. No single palliative care model can be fit for all conditions. However, there is a universal fundamental principle of palliative care: it should address the individual wishes and needs of each patient and the relatives of patients. The development and training of palliative care services vary from country to country: palliative care services are in the development stage in developing countries, compared to developed countries. This chapter provides necessary information about palliative care services, a multidisciplinary health service.

**Keywords:** palliative care, the purpose of palliative care, palliative care models, palliative care levels, palliative care in the world

### **1. Introduction**

Scientific and medical advances in the last century have prolonged and facilitated life and delayed death. Advances in biomedical and clinical medicine have enabled the prevention and/or treatment of many diseases [1]. Recently, improvements in treatment models have significantly reduced or palliated the crucial effect of many diseases which were killing people in a short time in the past [2].

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined palliative care for the first time in 1989 as follows: "palliative care is an approach that improves the life quality of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual" [3]. In 2014, the WHO added another view to the definition: "Palliative care is the responsibility of all physicians"; thus, the definition of palliative care became comprehensive [4, 5]. Palliative care is a multidisciplinary care that aims to prevent or palliate the symptoms, *relief of suffering of patients*, and improve life quality of them [6]. Palliative care should not only be applied to patients in the final stages of life: it should be integrated into medical care and curative and life-long treatment, regardless of disease stage

[7, 8]. In palliative care, patient-specific care, family support, multidisciplinary teamwork, and effective communication are essential [6]. In short, palliative care is a philosophy of care and is based on holistic care and support for families including the mourning period [9, 10].
