Curing Diseases and Healing Suffering: Inspiration from Developments in Palliative Medicine

Abstract

Geriatrics and palliative medicine are medical specialties that share much in common: they are relatively recent disciplines, they deal with the elderly, and end-of-life issues are prominent. They both aim to provide an improved quality of life for patients whose health is generally deteriorating. However, the two disciplines have significant differences. Geriatrics arose out of the Western scientific medical tradition, which has a diseaseoriented, curative focus. Palliative medicine sprang from the hospice tradition, which began as a protest against perceived deficiencies in the existing biomedical model of care. This report explores the philosophy underlying palliative medicine, and what it might have to offer to the discipline of geriatric medicine in end-of-life care.

Keywords

• geriatrics
• hospice care
• spirituality
• thanatology