Home Health Care News

 

Understanding Hospice Care

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Hospice care is the specialized care that is provided to dying patients who are terminally ill and have a life expectancy of 6 months or less. Hospice care providers help by providing humane and compassionate care for individual's during their final stages of life when incurable disease has been accepted, treatment stops and an effort to finish that final days in peace and comfort is taken.

The entire care plan under hospice is focused on accepting that the final stage of life has come near and that death, though inevitable, can be done in dignity. Dying in dignity is a phrase used to represent the goal of hospice which is to help patients to remain pain-free and manage their symptoms during their last days of life so that they can spend quality time with family and loved ones until the very last minute.

Under the care of a hospice provider, an individual who has accepted life and death receives help for their ailment in order to remain as comfortable as possible. The patient is treated like a person with feelings and emotions rather than like a disease that must be defeated. At this point, the disease cannot be defeated and a hospice care provider can help a patient focus on the quality of their life during the final days rather than on increasing the number of days they have to live. Family-centered care, in which families and loved ones are actively involved with the patient in making the final decisions is a primary goal of hospice.

Hospice care providers provide home care, nursing home care and hospital care for the patient as well as various services for the families and loved ones of the patient. In most cases, hospice care is provided at the patient's home where the patient is directly cared for by the hospice provider in conjunction with a family member. This helps to keep the process comfortable for the patient as well as the family.

Who Can Get Hospice Care?

Hospice care is not for everyone but is it a suitable type of home care for those who have accepted death as a part of life and who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness in which their life expectancy is 6 months or less. Those who have come to realize, with the help of their family members and doctors that cancer treatment will no longer benefit them should seek hospice care in order to get the most enjoyment out of their final stages of life.

Hospice care providers offer palliative care for individuals during their final days. Palliative care treats cancer related symptoms such as pain, discomforts, and other problems without providing treatment for or a cure for the disease itself. Most importantly, hospice care providers help an individual to remain comfortable and coherent during the final stage of life so that the individual may spend quality time with friends and family members.

When to Start Hospice Care

The decision to begin hospice care is ultimately up to the patient and the family but it is backed by the doctor. Together, the patient and the family should work with the doctor to decide when hospice care is going to be the best option to retain dignity and quality of life.

Unfortunately, hospice is often resisted for a number of reasons by doctors, family members or the patient. Some doctors will have experimental treatments or other reasons to advise a patient against hospice care. Family members and patients may resist hospice care because they feel like they are giving up hope on themselves or a loved one. Unfortunately, by waiting until the very final days to accept hospice, the advanced stages of disease may be so far that an individual does not get to spend that "quality" time with family members because the time when the individual was "well" enough to do so was spent fighting the disease when it was too late.

It's important that every patient and family member understand that hospice care is not a "death wish" and it's not giving up hope. It's an acceptance that health care, as is provided, is not enough to fight the disease in the final stages and such care may cause the quality of life during the final weeks or months to be decreased significantly or even lost. Hospice care provides bring hope that each patient has the support and help that they need to live their final days in dignity and with the respect of their care provider and their loved ones by their side.