Palliative care and Hospice care are both patient-centered approaches focused on comfort, symptom management, and quality of life, but they differ in timing, eligibility, and treatment goals.

Palliative care is a medical specialty that can be provided at any stage of a serious illness—such as cancer, heart failure, or advanced neurological disease—and may be delivered alongside curative or life-prolonging treatments. Its interdisciplinary model addresses pain control, symptom burden, psychosocial stress, and care coordination, regardless of prognosis.

Hospice care, by contrast, is a specific subset of palliative care intended for patients who are terminally ill, generally with a physician-certified life expectancy of six months or less if the disease follows its normal course. Hospice requires that the patient forgo curative treatment and instead focus exclusively on comfort-oriented care, typically delivered in the home or a homelike setting.

In summary, all hospice care is palliative in nature, but not all palliative care is hospice; the key distinctions involve prognosis, treatment intent, and eligibility criteria.