This newspaper column gives me the opportunity to address important issues related to long-term care planning, including financial, housing and legal matters. Conversations on these topics are often difficult within families, but they are important if we want to control our future and maintain our lifestyle.

Conversations about illness and death may be even more difficult, requiring courage from family members, medical professionals, faith leaders, caregivers and those who work with seriously ill patients. Yet these conversations allow us to determine the care we want to receive during a prolonged illness or in our final days. When quality of life matters most to us, our choices will include hospice or palliative care.

What is hospice? — Hospice is both a philosophy and practice of caring for the dying. It focuses on quality of life when an individual has a life expectancy of six months or less. Hospice is not a place; rather, it is a system of care, often provided in the home. Hospice care keeps patients comfortable and pain-free, while helping patients and family live these last days to the fullest. Hospice focuses on palliative care.

What is Palliative care? — Palliative care is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than halting or delaying progression of the disease itself or providing a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering, improving the quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. Palliative care is appropriate at any point in an illness, and it may be given at the same time as curative treatment.

Palliative care aims to relieve symptoms such as pain, shortness or breath, fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite and difficulty sleeping. It can improve an individual’s ability to tolerate medical treatment, and it helps a patient better understand choices for care. The care is customized for every individual, and support is also provided to family members and caregivers. The medical team helps patients and family make medical decisions and choose treatments.

On Thursday, April 17, the Detroit Area Agency on Aging is one of several supporting organizations for “Courageous Conversations,” a half-day teach-in to help caring individuals respond to the needs of sick and dying persons. Organized by the Interfaith Health & Hope Coalition, the program is sponsored by St. John Health.

St. John Health and the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life have launched a three-year collaborative pro-ject to improve access to and quality of palliative care and end-of-life care for all St. John patients. The goal is to assure that all patients and their families receive compassionate care with attention to their spiritual, psychosocial and clinical needs as they confront advance illness.

St. John Health teamed with the Interfaith Health & Hope Coalition for “Courageous Conversations,” recognizing that there are ways for all of us to communicate and minister to those facing difficult health challenges. The interfaith coalition is a collaborative effort among more than 100 faith leaders, with programs that focus on quality health care, disease management, health access, disparities, and cultural diversity.

There is no charge for the April 17 program. Faith community leaders, health ministers, parish nurses, social workers and other interested persons are invited to attend. Topics will include the state of suffering for persons dealing with advance disease, challenges with care and resources, how the faith community can respond and what lessons were learned from case studies, including the Terri Schiavo case in Florida. Schiavo was the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman who became the centerpiece of a national right-to-die battle. She died two weeks after doctors removed the feeding tube that had sustained her for more than a decade.

To register, call St. John HealthConnect, 1-(888) 440-7325. Questions about the program may be addressed to Mary Ann Martin at maryan.martin@stjohn.org, (248) 849-2518.

Tune in to “The Senior Solution” on WGPR/107.5FM every Saturday morning at 10 a.m,, hosted by Paul Bridgewater, president and CEO of Detroit Area Agency on Aging.