Palliative care is not about giving up. It is about living as well as possible with a serious illness. Dr. Antarikhya Bordoloi is certified in palliative care and offers home-based support in Newtown, Rajarhat, and Salt Lake.
Palliative care is specialised medical support focused on relieving the symptoms, pain, and stress of a serious illness — not on curing it. It runs alongside whatever other treatment a patient is receiving. It can begin at diagnosis, not just at the end of life.
For elderly patients, palliative care often addresses pain management, breathlessness, fatigue, poor appetite, difficulty sleeping, and the anxiety and depression that frequently accompany serious illness. It also involves honest conversations with the patient and family about what to expect, what matters most, and how to plan ahead.
As a geriatrician with palliative care certification, I integrate this approach into my practice routinely — not as a separate service, but as part of whole-person care for older adults with complex or serious illness.
Palliative care is appropriate for elderly patients with:
A geriatric and palliative care lens is particularly valuable in older patients because many of these conditions coexist — a patient may have heart failure and dementia and diabetes simultaneously, and coordinating care across all of these requires a clinician who thinks about the whole person.
Palliative care means you are dying and have given up on treatment.
Palliative care can begin at any stage of a serious illness and runs alongside active treatment. Many patients receive palliative support for years while continuing disease-modifying therapy.
Palliative care shortens life.
Research consistently shows that patients receiving palliative care alongside standard treatment often live as long as — or longer than — those who do not, with significantly better quality of life.
Palliative care is only for cancer patients.
Palliative care benefits patients with any serious illness — heart failure, dementia, advanced COPD, kidney disease, and others — not only cancer.
Through GeraVita, home visits include a clinical assessment of the patient's current symptom burden and functional status, a review of all medications (with particular attention to whether medicines intended for long-term disease management are still appropriate versus increasing side effects), and a direct conversation with the family about what the patient is experiencing and what can be done.
I also discuss prognosis and planning — not to deliver bad news abruptly, but to ensure families have the information they need to make decisions that align with what matters to the patient. These conversations are some of the most important I have, and they are best had before a crisis, not during one.
Home visits are available in Newtown, Rajarhat, and Salt Lake. For families managing care from abroad, written summaries and monthly liaison calls are available through the NRI Family Plan.
No — this is the most common concern families raise. Palliative care is not about stopping treatment. It is about adding a layer of support to manage symptoms and improve quality of life, alongside whatever other treatment is happening. In many cases, it actually enables patients to continue curative or disease-modifying treatment more comfortably.
Specialists focus on their domain — which is appropriate and necessary. But an elderly patient with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and five medicines is more than the sum of those conditions. A geriatrician with palliative care training looks at how all of these interact, whether the medication burden is appropriate for the patient's current goals, and what support the family needs. We work with specialists, not instead of them.
In many cases, yes. Effective pain management in a home setting requires the right assessment and the right medications — both of which require a trained clinician. Where home-based management is not sufficient, I will advise on when hospitalisation is necessary and help coordinate that transition.
Pain and discomfort in patients with advanced dementia are often under-recognised and undertreated because the person cannot self-report. A trained clinician can assess behavioural and physiological signs of discomfort, adjust medications accordingly, and advise caregivers on what to watch for. This is an area where specialist input makes a significant difference to the patient's day-to-day experience.
This is one of the most human parts of my work. Many families are reluctant to consider palliative care because they equate it with death or defeat. I find that these conversations are easier when framed around what the patient is currently experiencing — pain, breathlessness, poor sleep, loss of appetite — and what could concretely be done to address it. Would you like to speak with me directly? I am glad to help you have this conversation with your family.
Hospital consultations at Manipal Hospital Broadway, or doctor-led home visits in Newtown, Rajarhat & Salt Lake. Families managing from abroad can enquire via WhatsApp.