Palliative Care During Cancer Treatment

Stay comfortable throughout your cancer treatment

What is palliative medicine?

Palliative medicine is inpatient or outpatient medical care specialized for people with serious illness. It is available at any stage of cancer diagnosis or treatment. At Henry Ford Cancer, our palliative medicine specialists focus on providing relief from the symptoms of cancer and its treatments such as pain, nausea, or anxiety. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

Meet Our Palliative Medicine Team

Benefits of palliative medicine for cancer patients

By working with you, your oncology team, and family, we blend palliative medicine into your cancer journey. We provide:

• Specialized treatment of pain and other symptoms. Pain, nausea, breathing and eating difficulties, anxiety, and sleeping problems can make it hard to enjoy life. We can suggest ways to address these problems.
• Emotional support for you and your family. Cancer can be sad and frightening for both the patient and family. Along with behavioral health, we provide emotional support and counseling or medication when needed.
• Guidance and support when you're faced with difficult treatment choices. Sometimes, patients and families face difficult choices about future treatments: Do treatment benefits outweigh its burdens? Is a very risky intervention worthwhile? We can help facilitate conversations to discuss these concerns. Our palliative medicine physicians are specially trained in the CLEAR Conversations program, the goal of which is to improve conversations between providers, patients, and their families.
• Help coordinating care at home and with other community resources. Community resources can make it possible for you to receive care at home. We can help you find services that support your treatment needs, and coordinate symptom management and psychosocial support plans with community resources, such as Henry Ford at Home or others.
• Assistance with Advance Care Planning. We encourage everyone to complete an Advance Directive Form, so your advocate and medical wishes are in writing and will be followed even if you should become unable to make your own medical decisions. Ask a member of your palliative medicine care team if you have any questions about advance care planning, or register for the Advance Care Planning 101 virtual class, available monthly.

Cancer and pain

Many people have pain from their cancer, cancer treatment, or pain during survivorship. Pain is NOT a normal part of cancer care, and can often be almost completely controlled or relieved through treatment or therapy with the help of your palliative medicine team.

If you are having pain during your cancer or cancer treatment, tell your palliative medicine doctor or oncologist. Be very specific about the intensity and location of your pain. It is helpful to use a pain diary, like this example from the American Cancer Society, to help your provider understand the specifics of your pain, and be able to treat it successfully.

Ask a Cancer Support Specialist