Can anyone here suggest an antonymn for Palliative, as in "Hospice service provides palliative care"?

Thanks!
- Tim

terrible? anti-enantiopathic?

just kidding, sorry.

just curious, why would you want an antonym?

welcome to the board, Tim!

>>just curious, why would you want an antonym?<<

I want to use it in an article that I'm writing on hospice care, something like this, "Palliative care, as compared to [antonymn] care, is concerned with..."

Thanks,
Tim

From the context you provide, are sure that you really want an antonym? You may be contrasting different types of care, but they are not really opposites, are they?

"Palliative care, as compared to curative care, is concerned with..."

Not an antonym, but I think it's what you're looking for.

I think you've got it, Faldage! The antonym would have to be something like ... aggravating (aggravative?). In any case, nothing you'd be likely to use to describe a type of care.

yes, yet another example of an offhand use of opposite, when what's really wanted is contrasting -- we do see a lot of that, don't we?!

I found two medical websites which define "therapeutics" as that branch of medicine concerned with the treatment of diseases, "palliative or curative."

This parallel coupling of words modifying "treatment" suggests that Faldage got it just right.

This parallel coupling of words modifying "treatment" seems indeed to fit the bill in my view, but if you put "care" in place of "treatment", it's less convincing: "curative care" raises the question of the endpoint..

It has been, I think, extraordinarily difficult for modern medicine to accept the notion of palliative care of the dying. This acceptance appears to have been hampered by two dominant notions in medicine: (1) that cure is always the highest and best goal and (2) that death is always the worst outcome. Much of the language of medicine lags behind the broader acceptance of death as one part of the process of living. It seems it may take a generation of evolution in the language to get all of the words and phrases adjusted to a newer medical view which accepts death as something other than a defeat for the physician.

>>
Palliative care, as compared to curative care, is concerned with..."

Not an antonym, but I think it's what you're looking for.
<<

Thanks, I think you have the right approach - I am indeed looking for a comparative, not an opposite.

Thanks to all,
Tim

> death as one part of the process of living

very well said, Padre.

Palliative care facilities are for the easing of a dieing person into death in as little pain as possible and in the most comfort possible.

There are several of these in Montreal, and most hospitals have wards/floors that are for palliative care only.

Did I misunderstand the posts above that make me think this is not a common thing outside of Québec?

In reply to:

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Did I misunderstand the posts above

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It would seem so. None of the posts above indicate any unfamiliarity with the concept of palliative care. Instead, the thread starter was looking for a word to describe non-palliative care, which led into a discussion on whether he was really looking for an antonym. Even my small hometown has a hospice that will soon be marking 25 years of service.

Thanks max. I misinterpreted the posts, I must admit.


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On a separate note, and yet related to your post max...I hadn't heard the word "hospice" in years. Though I know exactly what you mean, it is a word that has fallen out of use here. You'll only hear it from the lips of the quite older people of my Granny's generation.

>old-fashioned words

I was thinking of you yesterday while reading a thread at languagehat on which language is the best for cursing. Someone offered this:
"And what of Québécois French? It is harsh, crude, beautifully anti-ecclesiastic and superbly poignant. To me, c'est de la poésie, crisse!"

HA! That is SO Québécois. You made me laugh out loud max.

> hospice

hospice is a very common word here in Southern Canada, oh, I mean, Vermont...

>You made me laugh out loud max.

I have no idea what the phrase means, and I'm guessing that I don't really want to know, either.

It’s not a very bad phrase max, mon chou.

It’s simply that you don’t expect the last part, the crude swearword “crisse” (Christ!!), adjacent to the mellifluous and honeyed tone of the beginning “C’est de la poésie” (It is poetry).

I wish you could hear me speak it. The humour in the juxtaposition would be very apparent.

Thanks, Bel. It must be all in the delivery, since it turns out that I had understood the words.

I am late to this party but let me chime in with my support for curative. Palliative care implies that there is no attempt being made to cure the illness (e.g. metastatic cancer). Examples include morphine to relieve pain, or radiation treatments to shrink a tumor that is partially obstructing the airway. These treatments improve the patient's quality of life, and may even extend life somewhat, but in no way are they expected to completely cure the patient. Curative care, of course, is delivered with the aim of eradicating disease completely.

The distinction between curative and palliative medicine can be too sharply drawn, methinks, because some diseases/conditions are ineradicable. It is a rare doctor treating the arthritis patient who will propose to "cure" this disease/condition/process.