Patients with advanced
chronic diseases receive fragmented care, which entails high
resource consumption and a poor
quality of life .
Uncertainty in the
prognosis and scarce investigation into the importance of symptomatic
control in this
patient group hinders a proper
therapeutic approach.
Palliative care teams optimise the use of
resources through comprehensive
patient care , the
optimization of the
patient 's
environment ,
communication , the preparation of early care plans and the creation of coordinated
healthcare circuits, which improve the
quality of the
patient 's care in advanced stages of the
disease . In the end-of-
life phase, the
therapeutic approach is focused on symptomatic
control , selecting
treatments according to the cause, comorbidities and the
patient 's wishes. To
control refractory symptoms, palliative sedation is considered an indispensable option.