"there is nothing more we can do" usually means to the doctor that the disease cannot be cured. It does not mean that we have run out of ways to help. There are still many things that can be done to promote comfort and ease distress.
The Range of Services Providing palliative care requires special skill and expertise from a variety of health care professionals and includes close attention to controlling symptoms and providing psychosocial and spiritual support. Both patient and family are involved in palliative care to ensure that the patient can live as fully as possible in the face of impending death and the most satisfactory quality of time together can be achieved. Family members benefit from such support during the illness and, later, during their time of grieving.
Another term sometimes used is hospice care. First used in England, hospice refers to a place where palliative care is given and also to the concept that palliative care, after active treatment is no longer appropriate, is especially important and worthy. It now also applies to any palliative care, whether in an institution (hospice) or in the home ("hospice care").
Palliative care/hospice care is, then, a set of ideas or beliefs about what is important when people are dying and how they can be helped. The ideas have been used to develop special programs or ways of offering help to patients and families. In some hospitals, palliative care teams of nurses, doctors, social workers and others will visit a patient in the hospital. In some communities, palliative care experts and health professional teams will visit a person at home. There are also volunteer hospice organizations across the country that can provide
