Enhanced psychosocial support as important component of neuro-palliative service

There are unmet palliative care (PC) needs for psychosocial and spiritual distress of neurology patients such as bad stroke as well as in chronic neurodegenerative diseases. As such, psychosocial support to both patients and their caregivers should be enhanced in order to provide comprehensive neuro-PC. The first step in developing this type of support/program was to recognize the main psychosocial care needs of the population. Once these were determined, a program was specifically devised to meet those needs as efficiently and effectively as possible. Several studies have shown the importance and value of psychosocial support for terminally ill patients. Generally, the psychosocial aspects of PC generally receive little or no attention in such studies due to financial limitations and, perhaps more importantly, because PC remains an evolving concept. Recent studies of psychological therapies have yielded relevant results in terms of effectiveness and have shown improvement regarding life meaning and well-being in end-of-life patients. However, there are still gaps in providing psychosocial support to the advanced neurology patients opted for PC.