Abstract
Soshukai Okabe Clinic was established in 1997 by the author and until now it has tried to construct a standard model of palliative home care in Japan in accordance with the WHO’s definition of palliative care. Our care team consists of various professionals, such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, caregivers, occupational therapists, practitioners of acupuncture and moxibusion, spiritual care workers. Presently we provide palliative home care services for about 300 terminal cancer patients a year and more than 80 % of the patients die at home according to their wishes.
In this paper, I look back to my experiences of the past decade and explain how we developed our palliative home care team. First I point out why interdisciplinary care team is required in palliative home care and I emphasize the importance of an equal partnership among team members. Secondly I argue that we need carefully to analyze social changes regarding death and dying in Japan. In conclusion, I propose that we should incorporate social science perspectives into palliative care to develop palliative home care in Japan.
