Shortness of breath (dyspnea) is common in people with serious or advanced illness. It makes breathing difficult and uncomfortable. Read on to learn more.

Certain treatments can help sustain life when you have a serious illness. But as your illness progresses, there may come a time when these treatments are no longer a benefit. You must then decide whether to continue or stop these treatments.

When you have a serious illness, your healthcare provider will review treatment choices with you as your illness progresses. Artificial feeding is one such treatment. It supplies artificial nutrition to your body if you can no longer take in food by mouth. This sheet tells you more about artificial feeding as an option.

Resuscitation refers to the methods used to try to restart the heart and lungs if they stop working. If you have a serious illness, your healthcare provider will likely talk to you and your loved ones about resuscitation and other treatments you may need in the future. Read on to learn more about resuscitation and what you need to know when deciding about this treatment.

Pain management is the careful use of treatments to reduce pain. Every person has a right to have relief from pain. The main goal of pain management in hospice is to improve quality of life. Pain management can also help improve a person's physical and mental functions.

Advance care planning is the process of deciding one's own future medical care. It helps to make sure that if you can't speak for yourself, your wishes can still be carried out. The plan is a series of legal documents that note a person's wishes. The documents vary by state.

Palliative care is a way to improve quality of life for a person who's being treated for a serious illness. It is a type of medical specialty. To palliate means to ease the symptoms of an illness.

Total cystectomy is surgery to remove the bladder. It is most often done to treat bladder cancer. After the bladder is removed, the surgeon must make a new way to drain urine from your body. This is called urinary diversion.

Total cystectomy is surgery to remove the bladder. After the bladder is removed, a new bladder (neobladder) or an internal pouch is made to collect urine. This is called a continent urinary diversion. Learn more about this procedure.

Continent urinary diversion is surgery to make a new way for urine to pass out of the body. During the surgery, either a new bladder (neobladder) or a pouch is created. This is done using a piece of your own intestine (bowel). Learn about the details of this procedure.