When does palliative care start? When the disease is declared incurable?
In one word, no. In answer to question 1, we saw the various problems that adversely affect quality of life. We can easily see that all these problems would exist at the time of diagnosis as well as all through the phase of treatment, whether it is radiotherapy, chemotherapy or surgery. Hence ideally, all principles of palliative care must be applied from the time of diagnosis. The patients need for emotional support may be most when the diagnosis is broken to him. Emotional support will also significantly increase the patient s compliance to definitive treatment. So it will be best for the patient if modalities of palliative care are applied concurrent with definitive treatment. However, the need for palliative care does become more when the disease is declared incurable. Some people continue to follow the old WHO definition and say that the term palliative care applies only to the incurable. They may then follow a different terminology and use the term supportive care to describe the
