The act of dying ultimately becomes "a 24-hour-a-day process" and patients usually need increasing levels of care as they draw closer to the end. Ideally, a multi-disciplinary team of doctors, nurses, personal-care workers and others should be involved in your care. Here is what you need to know.

Most of us have the desire to end our days in the comfort of our own homes, but the reality is that more often than not, we will spend our last days in hospital or in a nursing home on palliative care. With this type of care, the only medical intervention provided is purely for comfort and pain relief. But palliative care doesn't end with the patient; it extends to their family, and the entire process of accepting what will be a peaceful, dignified death.