When Professor David Currow asks his students in the Department of Palliative and Supportive Services at Adelaide's Flinders University what they'd do if they found out they were suffering a terminal illness and only had a few months to live. Their responses – overwhelmingly similar - surprise him: stop going to university, go skydiving.

What he found in his work with patients, however, is that work is a key social outlet for them; they want to continue working for as long as they can. Work provides social interaction, support from work mates, feelings of self-worth and normal daily routine.

This raises the question then, are we helping patients with terminal illnesses to maximise their quality of life while they are still living, so they may participate in normal daily activities for as long as possible?

Prof Currow would say no, we are not. “We should look at the goals of patients,” he said.

“And we need to get our language right. If I am looking after people, they are living with a life threatening illness. We put it in the context of dying – and we shouldn't.” When we do that, he said, “we disenfranchise that person in a way that is quite overwhelming.

He discussed what he called the “huge issue” of terminally ill patients struggling with feelings of being a burden on people around them. He argues that we have the capacity to lessen this feeling, by improving levels of functionality through rehabilitation; that is, devoting more attention to rehabilitation of such patients than currently occurs. “There is very limited focused support – and there is unmet need,” Prof Currow said.

“What if we could potentially change the level of function? – and I’m not talking about changing prognosis.” He talked about a practical approach to terminal illness, experienced this year by about 60,000 Australians, which carries with it social, financial, personal and existential implications.

“The challenge is we have identified the problem. We know that we can influence outcomes positively for very small outlays of resource. And I believe that we owe it to this group of our community of which we will on average have a one in two chance of being in, to ensure that we are optimising the level of function right up until the time of death across all the six domains that I've mentioned: physical, social, emotional, sexual, financial and existential. With that I believe we as a community can say we are providing care for everyone in a way that respects the autonomy, the personhood and the life in us all.”