Palliative Care
Summary
Palliative care is a patient-centred approach that seeks to relieve suffering and optimise quality of life for individuals facing serious or life-limiting illness. Rather than focusing solely on curative interventions, it addresses physical symptoms such as pain, breathlessness and nausea alongside psychological, social and spiritual concerns. Delivered by a multidisciplinary team—including physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, social workers and chaplains—palliative care aims to anticipate and manage distressing problems, facilitate advance care planning, support families and coordinate care across hospitals, hospices, long-term care facilities and the home. Early integration alongside standard medical treatment has been shown to improve symptom control, reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and enhance satisfaction for patients and caregivers. Globally, palliative care is recognised as an essential component of universal health coverage, yet access remains uneven. Efforts continue to develop scalable models that respect cultural values, ensure equitable distribution of essential medicines, and provide training for front-line staff to meet the needs of an ageing population and increasing prevalence of chronic multimorbidity.
Research from Nature Portfolio
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Palliative Care publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in palliative care across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Palliative care: An approach to healthcare that improves quality of life by preventing and relieving suffering through holistic assessment and management of symptoms and support for patients and families.
Hospice care: A model of end-of-life care for patients with a limited prognosis, focusing on comfort and dignity rather than curative treatment.
Advance care planning: A process of discussing and documenting an individual’s values, treatment goals and care preferences to guide future healthcare decisions.
Multidisciplinary team: A coordinated group of professionals from diverse disciplines working collaboratively to address the full spectrum of patient needs.
Scoping review: A method for mapping the key concepts, types of evidence and gaps in research related to a defined topic.
References
- Resources to Support Decision-Making Regarding End-of-Life Nutrition Care in Long-Term Care: A Scoping Review. Nutrients (2024).
- Models of care for people with dementia approaching end of life: A rapid review. Palliative Medicine (2023).
- Clinically informed machine learning elucidates the shape of hospice racial disparities within hospitals. npj Digital Medicine (2023).
About these summaries
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