Palliative Care: Making Life-limiting Illness More Manageable is the topic of the August educational presentations at area libraries: August 17 at 6:30 p.m. at Polk County Library in Columbus and August 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the Landrum Library.

When people are living with serious illness, they need relief from pain and other annoying physical symptoms and the stresses of a prolonged illness.

They want to better understand the truth about their illness and the choices for care both aggressive curative treatments and comfort measures. And they, and their families, want to be able to carry on with everyday life, connected to the community resources they need, as well as getting help planning for the future.

Palliative (pronounced p-lee-uh-tiv) Care of the Carolina Foothills (PCCF) is making an enormous positive difference in these ways for families in Polk County, N.C., and Spartanburg and Greenville counties, S.C.

Since 2007 PCCF has served 656 individuals and their families. Program Coordinator Meg Hoke reports that comments like these are common among PCCF clients:&bsp; I dont know what to do; I dont understand whats going on; and Something has to change.

Our work, says Hoke, is to make sure that after we meet with them, patients and their families feel like they better understand the situation, know what the next step is, and are more comfortable and relaxed. Our goal every day of the year is to ease not only the physical burdens that patients and their loved ones must deal with, but to ease their minds as they face difficult decisions, and their emotional burdens as they cope with stressful situations.

For more information, call the Palliative Care of the Carolina Foothills at 828-894-7016, or toll free 800-617-7132.