The healthcare industry has introduced a shift that is causing the transformation of the entire system. This is called curative care.
Unlike palliative care, which provides relief to patients with illness or pain, curative treatments offer curative therapies to treat patients. When you seek curative care as a patient, you are given a chance to heal from your illness.
You never know when you or a loved one will gain hope upon learning that a cure is possible when they receive care designed for their illness. To learn more about the benefits and wonders of curative care, read on.
A Quick Look into the Medicare’s Hospice Benefit
Curative care, also referred to as therapeutic care, provides curative treatments for treatable medical issues, including terminal illness, serious illness, pain, and other health concerns deemed by doctors as treatable.
Curative care falls under the Medicare’s hospice benefit. It gives hope to families with patients suffering from a terminal illness, cancer patients, and people with underlying disease and other health concerns.
Curative care hopes to improve one’s quality of life despite medical issues. Curative care refers to the therapies provided and curative treatments given, even for patients hoping for a disease progression, trying to alleviate pain, and wishing for a longer life expectancy, even in cases when doctors rule out that there is no cure to what they have.
Let’s cover curative care more deeply to make you understand when to seek curative care or curative treatments. This article will tackle what to expect from curative care, how it differs from palliative care or hospice care, and what healthcare professionals give curative treatments and curative care services.
Curative Care vs. Palliative Care
Palliative care or hospice care is given to patients with serious or terminal illness and diseases, including heart failure and cancer.
Aside from palliative care, these patients receive palliative medicine from the cancer center, public health facility, or other healthcare systems where they are confined. They receive care designed for their specific illness, and treatments and therapies are provided to alleviate their symptoms and pain.
It may seem as if you are no longer given hope for a cure when undergoing palliative care or hospice care, but this is not the same as the end of life. Palliative care offers palliative medicine to improve a patient’s quality of life.
Despite having an illness without a cure, palliative care aims to prolong your life. Palliative care or hospice care makes life easier to live despite your terminal illness or serious medical problem.
On the other hand, curative care is similar to how you get cured of any disease or illness – by taking medicine and getting proper care.
Curative care therapies provide comfort by addressing your specific health concern and giving proper treatments to help you heal.
Curative care is similar to having a disease, for example, a skin allergy. When you have this health concern that is giving you discomfort, you will go to a doctor to seek treatment. The doctor may provide medicine, such as antibiotics, which you will take or apply.
You only have to note that patients usually suffer from more serious medical problems than a skin allergy when they seek curative care. The more complicated the disease is, the more complicated the therapies and medications you need to undergo and take.
Here are some examples of curative care:
- Dietary programs to address specific health problems
- Acupuncture for a specific illness
- Surgery for appendicitis
- Kidney failure surgery
- Bacterial infections chemotherapy
- Antibiotics for bacterial infections
- Cancer cast
- Broken bone cast
- Chemotherapy for cancer
- Cease chemotherapy to take other cancer medicines
The Three Archetypes of Curative Treatments
Curative care involves treatments given to patients for a limited time. These treatments target the cause and symptoms of the underlying disease to correct them permanently or semi-permanently.
Curative care does not include medicines a patient needs to take for the rest of their life. Take a look at the three archetypes of curative care:
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Drug
This drug modifies a patient’s biology. It targets and heals whatever the cause of the symptom, pain, and specific illness.
For example, hepatitis is cured by preventing viral replication through nucleoside analog interference. This is made possible through curative care medicine called Sovaldi (Gilead Sciences), which treats a patient with the hepatitis C virus.
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Gene therapy
It corrects the mutated or missing genes to cure the illness and alleviate pain. This curative care can be divided into germ-line and somatic therapy.
The germ-line therapy treats the patient and the kids they might conceive in the future. A good example of this is Spark Therapeutic’s Luxturna. This curative care is given to patients with IRDs or inherited retinal diseases.
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Re-engineering cells
Some good samples of this curative care are stem-cell and CAR-T treatments.
How Do I Make a Choice Regarding Curative Care?
You have to go to your doctor who understands your condition. If you are staying in a home nursing care Singapore, medical professionals will check you up and provide the best curative care depending on your illness.
What’s the Impact of Curative Care on Healthcare Systems and Care Provision?
Curative care helps in eliminating long-term treatments for chronic patients. So overall, curative care can lower the cost and impact of specific diseases.
Therefore, healthcare providers are looking at curative care as a game-changer in delivering their services, organizing care, and treating their patients.
Since it is expected for curative care to have upfront costs, which will significantly impact providers and payers, it will enforce a change in how new models for reimbursement and payment are designed. It needs to undergo a facelift to make curative care affordable once introduced to a bigger market.
Where to Avail the Three Archetypes of Curative Treatments in Singapore for Elderly Individuals?
Curative care is a potentially helpful model in the healthcare industry. But it can only happen when changes are made regarding where to get the funding and how to make it easier and affordable for everyone.
Where do you inquire if you want to undergo curative care? Ask a medical expert from a healthcare facility or hospital where you are confined about it.
In Singapore, elderly people with certain diseases can avail of the three archetypes of curative treatments from the following:
- Available government services
- Medical facilities and hospitals all over Singapore
- Referral or assistance from registered medical professionals
Final words
Curative care can impact the lives of patients living with diseases they once thought were incurable. But the therapies involved can also potentially disrupt the healthcare market and healthcare system.
Pharma companies must address their concerns with policymakers, payers, and care providers, including elderly care services. This is the only way to maximize the potential of curative care while controlling market disruption, making it a potential win-win option in the healthcare industry.
