BATON ROUGE — Patients with cancer not only have to worry about fighting the disease, but they also must battle cumbersome side effects, like fatigue and other symptoms related to cancer and its treatment.

"Side effects from cancer to treatment of cancer, such as pain, delirium, nausea, vomiting, debility, can also contribute to that cancer-related fatigue," Touré Barksdale, a rehabilitation specialist at Mayo Clinic, said.

Palliative medicine is a crucial component of cancer treatment. Its main purpose is to improve the patient's overall well-being.

"Whether that's more holistic care through integrative or complementary medicine, more Western-based medicines, psychological care, music therapy, aromatherapy, Reiki, tai chi — we have lots of things we can do to help reduce suffering while you're undergoing cancer," Barksdale said.

Palliative care is not the same as hospice care. The latter focuses on making patients comfortable and managing symptoms nearing the end of life when further curative treatments are no longer available.

"Palliative care, to me, is hope because what we're doing is we're improving your quality of life," Barksdale said.

This type of care is available at any stage of cancer treatment.