Diet and Nutrition in Palliative Care

Optimal terminal and palliative care requires consideration of the patient and family unit as well as cultural and religious sensitivities. The patient’s well being in terms of mobility, anxiety, stress, social interaction, and pain control needs expert focus and attention. Furthermore, there is an increasing awareness that diet and nutritional support plays an integral part of the patient’s holistic well being. The interface between nutritional, emotional, cultural, and medicinal support challenges terminal and palliative care providers to recognize the right thing to do, often in the face of considerable uncertainty.

Currently, there is no comprehensive book on nutrition in terminal or palliative care that is suitable for novices and experts alike. Diet and Nutrition in Palliative Care addresses this deficiency in the literature. Designed for doctors, nurses, caregivers, and those working within the palliative or end of life domain, each chapter contains sections on applications to other areas of terminal or palliative care, practical methods and techniques, guidelines, key points and ethical issues. The book is divided into six sections:

• Setting the Scene
• Cultural Aspects
• General Aspects
• Cancer
• Non-Cancer Conditions
• Pharmacological Aspects

Despite the complexity of the correlation between diet and disease, there is now a sufficient body of evidence to encourage applying nutritional science in everyday clinical practice. Increasingly, a strong interest and up-to-date knowledge and understanding of scientific studies on nutrition enables clinicians to help patients under their care more effectively at every stage of their illness. In response to this need, this handbook presents important information on the holistic use of nutrition and diet therapy in palliative care.

Professor Victor R. Preedy is the Director of the Genomics Centre in the department of Nutrition and Dietetics at King’s College in London.