Rehabilitation and palliative care: histories, dialectics and challenges

Rehabilitation and palliative care are health care fields with separate histories but some recent convergences. Both have been identified as components within universal health coverage and each is the subject of a supportive World Health Assembly Resolution. We draw on the historiography of the two specialties, a recent systematic review of their engagement with each other as described in 62 studies, and critical policy perspectives to examine how rehabilitation and palliative care have been framed as potential partners in care. We examine the changing patient groups served by each field and the organizational forms that combined rehabilitation and palliative care (CRPC) may take. We explore the implications of such collaboration for the underlying goals and values of the two specialties, where each is the subject of changing definitions with differing responsibilities for regulating access to services as well as assuring and documenting quality. We conclude that to be effective CRPC must adapt to the highly segmented and specialized systems in which it is required to operate, recognizing that rehabilitation and palliative care are themselves co-constructors of such segmentation and specialization, but also potential agents for change.