Hospice Care
Is It Time for Hospice?
Making the decision to ask for hospice care for a family member or a loved one is especially emotional and one that is often filled with fear and uncertainty. That’s because few of us understand the many benefits that hospice can bring to individuals suffering from a terminal illness, and to their families as well.
Hospice services are available to patients who no longer benefit from, or choose to forgo, curative treatment. The typical hospice patient has a life expectancy of six months or less, if the illness takes its expected course.
Hospice is comfort-focused care that is concerned with the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state of patients and their loved ones. Your hospice care team strives to bring balance to each of these areas of life through pain and symptom management, education, counseling, and grief support.
Hospice is specialized, end-of-life care that provides management and support for patients in the final phase of illness. The goal of hospice is to enable patients to live life free of pain and with symptoms well-managed, so that their remaining time may be focused on quality of life, time with those they love — at home or in a home-like setting.
Studies regarding hospice care have demonstrated significant benefits to both the patient and their family when an early referral to hospice is made. Pain and accompanying symptoms are better managed which leads to significant improvement of life, and often, longer length of life.
Patients who may benefit from hospice care are those in the final stages of chronic lung disease, congestive heart failure, AIDS, cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, or other life-limiting, terminal illness.
If you have any questions or would like a consultation about a potential hospice care need, please contact us at any time.