When is palliative care recommended for anxiety and low mood with cancer?

Palliative care looks at emotional distress together with physical symptoms, medicines, practical pressures and family concerns. A team may offer supportive conversations, coping strategies, help with sleep or symptom control, and referral to a psychologist, psychiatrist, counsellor, social worker or spiritual care professional when appropriate.

You do not need to wait until cancer treatment is finished. Anxiety may arise around scans, procedures, uncertainty or breathlessness; low mood may be linked with pain, fatigue, isolation or loss of independence. Naming these changes helps the team choose support that fits your preferences and care plan.

Tell your oncology team how distress affects sleep, eating, concentration, medicines, work or contact with other people. Note when symptoms appear and whether they follow treatment, pain or difficult news. Ask for a palliative care assessment and discuss options that may include counselling, medication review, relaxation practice, family support or practical help.

If speaking feels difficult, write down the changes or ask someone you trust to join the appointment. Keep taking prescribed medicines as directed and report new or worsening mood symptoms rather than managing them alone.

Seek urgent help if you may harm yourself or someone else, cannot stay safe, feel detached from reality, become severely confused or cannot manage essential medicines and care. Contact the oncology team promptly for rapidly worsening distress, several nights of little sleep, panic that does not settle or inability to eat and drink.

Ask: Could my symptoms or medicines be affecting my mood? Can palliative care arrange emotional support? Would counselling or a medication review suit me? What should my family watch for? Who do I call urgently if I feel unsafe or cannot cope?