Hospice care is the total, active care of patient and family at that stage of serious illness when the focus has shifted from providing treatment aimed at cure to ensuring the best possible quality of life.

Hospice care seeks to relieve the physical symptoms of illness while equally addressing the patient's emotional, spiritual and psychosocial needs.

Is hospice care the same as palliative care?

If you or a loved one is suffering from life-limiting illness, you may hear the term 'palliative care' being used to describe an approach which sounds very like the one referred to above. This term is widely favoured in the context of public health services.

The dictionary tells us that to palliate is to 'alleviate, without curing', and the terms 'hospice care' and 'palliative care' are often used interchangeably. Here at the Irish Hospice Foundation, however, 'hospice' is part of our name and 'hospice care' is the term with which we most readily identify, although we do sometimes use both terms.

Some people associate 'palliative' with the more medical aspects of care, such as pain control, but the World Health Organisation's definition of palliative care corresponds closely to the one given above for hospice care. There is now a recognised medical specialty known as Palliative Medicine.

Click on the links to the left to find out more about hospice care.