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 What is Palliative Care?

Palliative care focuses on the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of people with serious illnesses and their families. It offers comfort, dignity, and quality of life through control of pain and other physical symptoms, while also addressing the psychological, social and spiritual distress of illness. Palliative care providers work with your other doctors to help you achieve your best quality of life throughout treatment. The goal is to achieve the best possible quality of life for patients and families throughout their illness.

 Palliative Care Team

The UC Davis Palliative Care Services team includes physicians, nurses, social workers, and chaplains, all with specialized training and expertise in helping people feel better through serious illness. Our team specializes in interdisciplinary medical care focused on relieving the pain, symptoms, and stress of serious illness.  Our goal is to promote the highest quality of care and quality of life for people with serious illnesses and their loved ones.

Ways Palliative Care Can Help

Our Palliative Care specialists focus is on you and your family’s medical, psychological, and existential/spiritual needs.  Some of the specific ways we may help include: 

• Managing symptoms associated with your illness, such as pain, fatigue, nausea, anxiety, or depression.
• Discussing your care plan and treatment options and ensuring your treatment plan reflects your goals, priorities, preferences, and values.
• Helping you and your family plan for the future, including completing advance care planning documents that summarize your treatment preferences.
• Providing an extra layer of emotional and spiritual support for patients, family, loved ones, and caregivers.
• Connecting caregivers to appropriate resources.
• Providing bereavement support, when applicable.