Palliative care, currently also called ‘supportive care’, is a specialist care that focuses on improving thequality of life by relieving symptoms and stress in patients with an incurable disease. The actions taken areaimed at preventing suffering, treating pain and other somatic symptoms as well as at helping to solvepsychosocial and spiritual problems, along with support for the patient’s family.Heart failure caused by cardiomyopathy is an incurable disease that limits vital functions and is providedwith guaranteed palliative and hospice care. This is a progressive disease and therapy only slows down itscourse, which means that the patient will be accompanied by the diagnosis throughout their whole lifeand this disease will be the cause of death in some cases.This article includes an analysis of the documentation of patients with cardiomyopathy, in whom standardmethods of treatment, facilitating the improvement of heart function, proved to be ineffective. In order toimprove the quality of life, patients were transferred to the Department of Palliative Medicine.
Palliat Med Pract 2020; 14, 1: 7–1
