Hospice-palliative care and social strategies for improvement of the quality of end-of-life

Abstract

Despite of various efforts for high quality care at the end-of-life (EOL), there are still gaps between hope and reality of patients with terminal illness and their caregivers. Together with establishment of hospice-palliative care, we need to make strategies to reduce burden and suffering among the patients and their family members, such as social consensus on ideal dying, practice guideline for care of a dying patient, comprehensive governmental plan for EOL care, and the enactments of necessary laws. These efforts would make people accept the process of dying as a completion of life.