Published on: November 30, 2020

The current definition of palliative care by the World Health Organisation is 18 years old.

There have been calls from several quarters for revising it. 

Dr Lukas Radbruch and colleagues from all over the world (we are glad that Pallium India was part of the process) came together to create a new definition of palliative care which is:

Palliative care is the active holistic care of individuals across all ages with serious health-related suffering due to severe illness and especially of those near the end of life. It aims to improve the quality of life of patients, their families and their caregivers. The definition includes a number of bullet points with additional details as well as recommendations for governments to reduce barriers to PC.

It is understood that the World Health Organisation has not accepted this revision. However these discussions and this work are certainly steps in the direct direction.