Meaning and practice of palliative care for hospitalized older adults with life limiting illnesses

Objective. To illustrate distinctions and intersections of palliative care (PC) and end-of-life (EOL) services through examples from case-centered data of older adults cared for during a four-year ethnographic study of an acute care hospital palliative care consultation service. Methods. Qualitative narrative and thematic analysis. Results. Description of four practice paradigms (EOL transitions, prognostic uncertainty, discharge planning, and patient/family values and preferences) and identification of the underlying structure and communication patterns of PC consultation services common to them. Conclusions. Consistent with reports by other researchers, study data support the need to move beyond equating PC with hospice or EOL care and the notion that EOL is a well-demarcated period of time before death. If professional health care providers assume that PC services are limited to assisting with and helping patients and families prepare for dying, they miss opportunities to provide care considered important to older individuals confronting life-limiting illnesses.