How do you deal with the diagnosis "palliative"? What does life with an incurable disease look like? And how can palliative medicine accompany and support you? - Breast cancer patient Nadja Seipel and Bernd Alt-Epping, Medical Director of the Clinic for Palliative Medicine at Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD) and NCT Heidelberg, talked about this in the SWR1 Leute radio talk show.
Nadja Seipel was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and was considered cured after a few years. However, after suffering from shortness of breath, she was diagnosed with metastases in 2021. She was then accepted into a study at the NCT Heidelberg and has been receiving palliative care there ever since. She talks about her experiences and how she dealt with the incurable disease.
Palliative physician Bernd Alt-Epping explains in the program why palliative medicine means more than just caring for the dying. He emphasizes: "Palliative does not immediately mean the end of life - you can also live well for many years." The aim is to provide relief and support to seriously ill people in order to enable them to look to the future. Bernd Alt-Epping explains which forms of therapy are available, which emergency numbers to call for help in acute cases and how music or music therapy can have a positive effect.