Palliative care focuses on relief from physical symptoms as well as from emotional, social, and spiritual distress. The book promotes the importance of integrating psychosocial theories into standard palliative care to improve the quality of life of patients and carers. Current evidence suggests that palliative care improves patients' symptoms and quality of life, augments family satisfaction with caregiving, reduces excessive hospital admissions and costs, and provides greater alignment of medical care with the patient's needs and goals. The book emphasizes the importance of integrating psycho-oncology assessment in cancer care and attempts to define the various roles that a psycho-oncologist can play across the entire trajectory.
