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Medicine vocabulary · Treatments and Procedures

Palliative care

Meaning in medicine, with examples

/ˈpæliətɪv ker/nounCommon term

In medicine, palliative care means: Care that aims to relieve pain and other symptoms and improve quality of life for people with a serious illness that cannot be cured.

In Turkish: palyatif bakım

How it is used

Palliative care teams support patients and families with symptoms, emotional needs and planning, in hospital, in hospices or at home. It can start early alongside other treatment and is wider than end-of-life care. Doctors 'refer to' or 'involve' the palliative team.

Example sentences

  1. We've asked the palliative care team to help with her pain and breathlessness.

  2. Palliative care is not only for the last days of life.

Common collocations

  • palliative care team
  • specialist palliative care
  • refer to palliative care
  • palliative care needs
  • cancerA disease in which abnormal cells grow out of control, can destroy nearby tissue and may spread to other parts of the body.
  • prognosisA doctor's opinion about how an illness is likely to develop and what the chances of recovery or survival are.
  • break bad newsTo tell a patient or family difficult information, such as a serious diagnosis or a death, in a careful, honest and kind way.
  • next of kinThe person a patient names as their closest relative or contact, whom the hospital will call in an emergency.
  • metastasisThe spread of cancer cells from where they first grew to another part of the body; also a new tumor formed in this way.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Treatments and Procedures

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.