Palliative Care for Kidney Disease

What Is Palliative Care for Kidney Disease?

At its most broad, palliative care is a philosophy of care. A palliative care doctor focuses on the quality of life of people with a serious illness.

We want to help you live well.

This means focusing on you as a whole, including your physical, mental, and social health.

To help you live your life with kidney disease, our experts:

Treat your symptoms to increase your comfort.
Offer support and medicine to improve your mental health.
Work with you to discuss your values and help you decide on your treatment goals.
Provide advanced care planning services, to record your wishes before your illness becomes too severe.

Living with a serious illness is hard, and you will have a lot of tough decisions to make.

Palliative care can help, no matter the stage of your illness.

At the UPMC Kidney Disease Center, we urge anyone with kidney disease to receive palliative care.

While you have medical therapy, dialysis, transplant, or other kidney disease treatments, you can also see a palliative care doctor.

They provide:

Support and guidance while deciding on a treatment path and planning advanced care wishes.
Improved comfort while you have life-sustaining treatments like dialysis.

Although most people can benefit from palliative care, not everyone has access to this vital treatment option.

But at the UPMC Renal Supportive Care Clinic., you have access to leaders in giving this kind of care.

Your treatment will take place in a doctor's office.

We'll start by talking about your treatment goals and how your illness is making you feel physically and mentally.

From there, we'll work with you to design a treatment plan that includes:

Medicine to reduce pain and help you feel more comfortable.
Support services to help you cope with depression or stress caused by your kidney disease.
Helping you decide and record your care goals and advanced care wishes.
Working with your other doctors and keeping them up to date on your care.

At the UPMC Renal Supportive Care Clinic, our doctors are experts in both palliative care and kidney disease.

We work with your kidney doctor so we can provide the most complete care.