What is Palliative care - 1990, 2002 and 2023 WHO definitions - Meaning and definition

Published by Roberto Wenk. Last updated date: June 1, 2024.

Palliative care: a crucial part of integrated, people-centered health services. Relieving serious health-related suffering, be it physical, psychological, social or spiritual, is a global ethical responsibility. Thus, whether the cause of suffering is cardiovascular disease, cancer, major organ failure, drug-resistant tuberculosis, severe burns, end-stage chronic illness, acute trauma, extreme birth prematurity or extreme frailty of old age, palliative care may be necessary and must be available at all levels of care.

Source: WHO framework for meaningful engagement of people living with noncommunicable diseases, and mental health and neurological conditions. Internet. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240073074 Accessed on May 15, 2024.

Published by Roberto Wenk. Reviewed by Alison Ramsey. Last updated date: January 22, 2019.

Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life 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).

Palliative care:
* provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
* affirms life and regards dying as a normal process
* intends neither to hasten or postpone death
* integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care
* offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death
* offers a support system to help the family cope during the patient's illness and in their own bereavement
* uses a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement counselling, if indicated
* will enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness
* is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications

WHO. National Cancer Control Programs: Policies and Managerial Guidelines, 2nd ed. Geneva: WHO, 2002.

Published by Roberto Wenk. Reviewed by Alison Ramsey. Last updated date: January 22, 2019.

Palliative care is the active, total care of patients with progressive, far advanced disease and limited life expectancy whose disease is not responsive to curative treatment. It refers to the control of pain and of other symptoms as well as the treatment of social, psychological, and spiritual problems.

World Health Organization. Cancer pain relief and palliative care — report of a WHO expert committee. World Health Organization; 1990.

Palliative care - 1990, 2002 and 2023 WHO definitions

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