The Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center at Indiana University has announced a $3.4 million grant from the Indianapolis-based Walther Cancer Foundation to promote palliative care research and education.

The grant will support the creation of the Walther Program in Palliative Care Research and Education, which will work to help clinicians, researchers integrate palliative care into conventional cancer care. Palliative care emphasizes the prevention and treatment of disease symptoms, the alleviation of side effects related to treatment, and related psychological, social, and spiritual problems. Preliminary studies have found that when traditional cancer care is combined with palliative care, patients experience a better quality of life, have fewer depressive symptoms, and live longer.

The program will build upon the expertise of Simon Center clinicians and researchers currently engaged in palliative care and will work to train healthcare providers in palliative care practices, test novel interventions such as yoga or music therapy, develop and test programs to address the unmet needs of family caregivers, assess the impact of palliative care on the healthcare system and financial resources, and recruit a nationally-renowned investigator with experience in securing funding for palliative care.

"We are not only excited by this grant, but also deeply appreciative and grateful to the Walther Cancer Foundation for the opportunity that the grant represents," said Greg Sachs, division director of general internal medicine and geriatrics at the IU School of Medicine and a co-leader of the new program. "Funding for palliative care research has been one of the biggest challenges for the field, so this grant is a real game changer. It will allow us to jump-start our work from one that is promising to one that makes a real difference."