What is palliative care?
Palliative care improves the quality of life of patients and their families with advanced illness or life-threatening injury. Palliative care prevents and relieves suffering through early identification, assessment, and expert treatment of pain and other challenges: physical, psycho-social, and spiritual.
Palliative care includes:
- The affirmation of life and regard for dying as a normal process
- The intent to neither hasten nor postpone death
- Care throughout the continuum of illness in conjunction with curative therapies
- Availability of interventions early in the course of illness to assist with symptom management or advance care planning
- The use of an interdisciplinary team approach to address the comprehensive needs of patients and families.
This approach includes:- assessment and management of patient’s pain and other distressing symptoms
- integration of the psychological and spiritual aspects of patientand family care
- offering asupport system to help patients live as fully as possible
- offering a support system to help the family cope during the patient’s illness and in their bereavement
Eat, Drink, & Be Dazzled -- An Evening with Ira Byock
Join us for a fun and informative evening with Dr. Ira Byock, introducing his new book, The Best Care Possible: A Physician's Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life. Dr. Byock, professor at Dartmouth Medical School and a passionate advocate for quality end-of-life care, argues that the way Americans die is among the biggest national crises facing us today. Yet in our response, politics has trumped reason and commonsense. Through the lives of his patients Dr. Byock describes what palliative care really is, how it can profoundly reshape the way patients and families experience illness, and how--ultimately--it can save healthcare. Attendees will receive a free "hot-off-the-press" copy of the book! First 50 registrants are guaranteed an autographed copy. 
March 8, 7:00--9:00p.m.
Hyatt Regency at the Colorado Convention Center
650 15th Street, Denver
$55/person
Register by March 2 to guarantee your copy of the book!
February 20 & 21, 2012
Social Work Interventions Across the Palliative Care Continuum: Settings, Populations, Issues
The Fourth Annual spring conference will begin with an evening dinner and address featuring Jenny Nate, MSW, on the topic: Change Agents: The Role of Social Workers in a New Culture of Health Care. Ms. Nate
serves as the Director of Policy and Planning at the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC). Previously, she was a health policy analyst for the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and a medical social worker for Hospice of Saint John and Denver Health Medical Center.
A full day of interaction, instruction, and networking will follow, facilitated by Grace Christ, DSW, Professor of Social Work at Columbia University, on Family-Focused Interventions in Serious Illness . Dr. Christ is a co-founder of the Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network (SWHPN). She was formerly Director of Social Work at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City (MSKCC) and is a founding and past president of the Association of Oncology Social Workers.
Breakout sessions addressing specific topics will offer information and skills with immediate application in the workplace:
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The Long Road Home: The Impact of Memory Impairment in Hospice and Palliative Care, Laurel Okasaki-Cardos, LCSW, The Denver Hospice
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Veterans at End of Life: Thoughts on Care Management, Justin Collins, MA, MSW, HospiceCare of Boulder & Broomfield Counties
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Social Work: Leading the Way in Advance Care Planning and End-of-Life Discussions, Carol Forsberg, LCSW, OSW-C; Linda Cooper, LCSW; Darcey Sypolt, LCSW, Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers
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End-of-Life Challenges for the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community, Mitch Todd, MSW, LCSW, Pathways Palliative Care
February 20, 6:00-8:30PM, Dinner and keynote by Jenny Nate, MSW
Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality & Management, The University of Denver, 2044 E. Evans, Denver
Registration is closed for this event!
February 21, 8:00AM-4:00PM, all-day workshop with Dr. Grace Christ
Bethany Lutheran Church, 4500 E. Hampden Ave. (Just West of I-25)
After February 10, $95/person
4 CECs pending from the National Association of Social Workers
To register: Call 303-398-6326 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ,
All conference refreshments generously sponsored by
Save the Date!
Voices of Palliative Care, September 20, 2012
Featuring Richard Payne, MD, Professor of Medicine and Divinity, and Director of the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life
Our annual fall conference has an interdisciplinary focus with a strong emphasis on applicable tools and interventions. Dr. Richard Payne is an internationally known expert in the areas of pain relief, care for those near death, oncology and neurology. He has served on numerous panels and advisory committees, many at the national level. He has given expert testimony to the Congressional Black Caucus National Brain Trust and the President's Cancer Panel in the area of healthcare access disparities in cancer care, palliative medicine and end-of-life care. He also has received a Distinguished Service Award from the American Pain Society, of which he is president; the Humanitarian Award from the Urban Resources Institute; and the Janssen Excellence in Pain Award. $79/person with student, group, and volunteer discounts to be announced.
Past Life Quality Institute Conferences
Voices of Palliative Care
| 2007 | Dr. Kathleen Rusnak | A Time of Healing |
| 2008 | Dr. Kenneth Doka | Counseling Person with Life-Threatening Illness |
| 2009 | Dr. Ira Byock | Dying Well: The Nature of Suffering and The Nature of Opportunity Through the End of Life |
| 2010 | Richard Groves | We Are The Medicine: Assessing and Healing Spiritual Pain |
| 2011 | Berry Ferrell | Compassionate Communication in Palliative Care |
Spring Conference
| 2009 | Terry Altilio | Multi-dimensional Pain and Symptom Management by Social Workers for Social Workers |
| 2010 | Mary Raymer | Elevating the Role of Social Work in Palliative Care |
| 2011 | Shirley Otis-Green | Promoting Palliative Social Work: Addressing Suffering--Discovering Strengths |
© 2010 Life Quality Institute