Palliative care refers to health care that is intended to relieve pain and other troubling symptoms like nausea, fatigue, and shortness of breath. It is not meant to cure an underlying illness or to prolong the life of someone nearing death.
Curative care and palliative care can go hand in hand, however. In fact, relieving pain effectively can help the body fight off disease, and allow curative therapies to be more effective. So when doctors and nurses talk about palliative care, it should not be taken as a sign that they are "giving up hope."
And even in cases where a cure is not possible, there still is the hope of living free of pain – a goal that palliative care can help many people reach.