WHO Definition : Palliative care - a comprehensive approach , which aims - to maximize the quality of life of patients with incurable ( fatal ) condition and his family , through the prevention and relief of suffering through early detection and accurate diagnosis ( assessment) problems encountered , and an adequate therapeutic measures (with pain syndrome and other disorders of life) , and providing psychosocial and moral support.
According to current international approaches and concepts , palliative medicine should be an essential , integral part of health care and social care . WHO Declaration (1990 ) and the Barcelona Declaration (1996) calls on all nations of the world to incorporate palliative care into the structure of the national system of public health services .
Under the current definition, palliative medicine - a branch of scientific medicine and public health, whose main task is to improve the quality of life and alleviate the suffering of patients with different nosological forms of chronic incurable diseases, mainly in the terminal period of progression and in circumstances where the possibility of specialized treatment of the basic disease is limited or, in terms of modern scientific knowledge, unproductive.
Palliative and hospice care :
• Provides relief of pain and other symptoms or disorders of life that cause suffering;
• Accepts the life and considers death as a natural process;
• Not intended to acceleration or deceleration of death ;
• Combines the social, psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care ;
• Offers a support system to help patients live actively as possible until death ;
• Offers a support system to help the family to survive the hard times of the patient and bereavement - death of family and loved ;
• Uses an integrated interdisciplinary (team ) approach aimed at the needs of the patient and his family;
• Improves quality of life and positively affect the course of disease;
• Designed regardless of disease stage or primary treatment , in combination with another therapy that provides longer life , for example, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, and includes studies are needed to better understand the dynamics of disease control and prevention of clinical complications.
WHO gave the definition of palliative care for children :
Palliative care for children represents a special, however, is related to palliative care for adults sphere.
The principles that apply in the case of pediatric incurable diseases include:
• Palliative care for children - an active full taking care of the physical condition , mental ability and mental condition of the child , which also includes the provision of support to the family .
• Palliative care for children begins with the diagnosis of disease and continues regardless of whether the child receives appropriate treatment or not.
• the person providing palliative care to the child , should monitor and do our best to eliminate or reduce its physiological and psychological suffering, and to provide appropriate social conditions .
• Effective palliative care requires an integrated multidisciplinary approach that includes the involvement of family and making available public resources , it can be successfully implemented even if resources are limited.
• Palliative care for children can be achieved with limited resources of specialized health care facilities in general practitioners and even a child's home.
