완화치료에 대한 WHO의 정의
'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 spiritural.'
Key elements of palliative care
- Provide relief from pain and other distressing symptoms
- Affirm life and regard dying as a normal process
- Intended neither to hasten nor postpone death
- Integrate the psychological and spiritural aspects of patients care
- Offer a support system to help patients live as actively as possible unitl death
- Offer a support system to help family cope during the patient's illness and in their own bereavement
- Use a team approach to address the needs of patients and their families, including bereavement conuseling, if indicated.
- Enhance quality of life, and may also positively influence the course of illness.
- Is appliable early in the course of illness, in in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiatio therapy, and includes those investigations needed to better understand and manage distressing clinical complications.