Dedicated Palliative Cancer Care in the Stockton Region

At St. Joseph's Cancer Institute, our trusted palliative cancer care focuses on the physical and emotional needs of people with cancer. Our goal is to improve quality of life and provide pain relief and other comfort measures for people undergoing cancer treatment, recovering from cancer or its treatment, or facing a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Unlike hospice care, palliative care can be delivered at the same time as conventional life-saving cancer therapies.

Committed to your well-being, members of a palliative cancer care team at Dignity Health may include:

  • Your oncologist
  • Hospice and palliative medicine doctor — some doctors practice both oncology and hospice and palliative medicine
  • Your family doctor
  • Palliative care nurses
  • Home health aides
  • Social workers and mental health providers
  • Trained volunteers
  • Clergy members

Reasons for Palliative Care

Palliative cancer care can ease symptoms and provide comfort under the following situations: 

  • You have physical or emotional pain and cancer.
  • You need relief from such symptoms as pain, nausea, loss of appetite, anxiety, and fatigue.
  • You want more control over your treatment goals and the quality of your life while treating your disease.
  • Your cancer continues to progress despite treatment.
  • You have been in the hospital many times in the last year.
  • You want to remain in your own home instead of the hospital.

 

What Palliative Care for Cancer at Dignity Health Offers

Our personalized palliative care services at Dignity Health include:

  • Alternative therapies, including biofeedback, pet therapy, acupuncture, hypnosis, guided imagery therapy, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (talk therapy)
  • Assistance with medical decisions, including weighing the pros and cons of various treatments
  • Coordination of care, including care from other doctors you need to see
  • Counseling, including emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual support for you and your family
  • Medications, including medicines to control pain, nausea, anxiety, and other symptoms
  • Physical therapy, including therapeutic massage and exercise
  • Radiation therapy to ease pain, stop bleeding, and relieve pressure from tumors or other cancers

Medicare and most private insurers will cover palliative cancer care. You can receive palliative cancer care services while being treated for cancer at Dignity Health. Your team will review your needs and goals and adjust your care as necessary. In cases where treatment is no longer working, this may involve a transition to hospice or end-of-life care.

You can trust every aspect of your cancer care to the coordinated team of doctors, nurse navigators, home health aides, and more at Dignity Health. 

Dignity Health offers many options for cancer treatments and palliative cancer care in the Stockton region through St. Joseph's Cancer Institute.