ABSTRACT
The expression ‘palliative care’ is not new in medical terminology, but it has recently acquired a more specific meaning, particularly in the context of cancer treatment. Palliative care embodies ‘holistic’ care, that is, the patient is approached as a whole person and consequently much of the ‘therapy’ is oriented along the lines of nursing, or psychosocial support, rather than the prescription of drugs or other oncological regimens. Clinical research in European palliative care has focused, not unexpectedly, mainly on the problems of pain management. Even in the latter half of the 1980s, there were relatively few publications focusing on the broad aspects of quality of life in advanced cancer patients receiving palliative care, compared with those in the early stages of disease and receiving ‘radical’ or ‘curative’ regimes of surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy. The major hurdle to be crossed in the European health care community is producing valid translations of good instruments.
