Hospice
What is Hospice?
Hospice offers medical care toward a different goal: maintaining or improving quality of life for someone whose illness, disease or condition is unlikely to be cured. Each patient’s individualized care plan is updated as needed to address the physical, emotional and spiritual pain that often accompanies terminal illness. Hospice care also offers practical support for the caregiver(s) during the illness and grief support after the death. Hospice is something more that is available to the patient and the entire family when curative measures have been exhausted and life prognosis is six months or less.
Guiding Patients and Families to Hospice
While most people would prefer to die in their own homes, many terminally ill patients still die in the hospital. This is often due to lack of understanding of the benefits of hospice and failure of health providers to open the dialogue.
While a discussion about hospice may be hard, these conversations can lead to better pain management, time to say goodbye, and even a longer life, due to pain relief and home comforts. Some families who do choose hospice care often do so only for the last few days of life, and later regret not having done it sooner.
Under Medicare rules, a physician must certify that a patient is eligible for hospice. Families usually need time to digest and consider such a recommendation. If families are wavering, discharge planners can make a significant difference. Thoughtful discharge planners will make themselves familiar with hospice benefits, talk to hospital spiritual counselors and practice discussing the options.
Who is Eligible?
If a doctor has certified the patient’s prognosis as not longer than six months, the patient is eligible for hospice. This applies to anyone of any age, with any type of illness. As with cancer patients, people with ALS, kidney disease, and Alzheimer's disease, for example, can also benefit greatly from hospice care. Alzheimer's disease, in particular, is often overlooked for hospice referral because of its slow progression. People with Alzheimer's are usually referred to hospice when they are in the final stages of the illness.
If the patient is not mentally competent or is physically unable to communicate, the decision may be made by a healthcare proxy. If an advance directive has been filled out, the family generally knows who has been designated the healthcare proxy. In the absence of a healthcare proxy, caregivers and medical advisers should take guidance from a living will, if one exists.
Hospice offers medical care toward a different goal: maintaining or improving quality of life for someone whose illness, disease or condition is unlikely to be cured. Each patient’s individualized care plan is updated as needed to address the physical, emotional and spiritual pain that often accompanies terminal illness. Hospice care also offers practical support for the caregiver(s) during the illness and grief support after the death. Hospice is something more that is available to the patient and the entire family when curative measures have been exhausted and life prognosis is six months or less.
Guiding Patients and Families to Hospice
While most people would prefer to die in their own homes, many terminally ill patients still die in the hospital. This is often due to lack of understanding of the benefits of hospice and failure of health providers to open the dialogue.
While a discussion about hospice may be hard, these conversations can lead to better pain management, time to say goodbye, and even a longer life, due to pain relief and home comforts. Some families who do choose hospice care often do so only for the last few days of life, and later regret not having done it sooner.
Under Medicare rules, a physician must certify that a patient is eligible for hospice. Families usually need time to digest and consider such a recommendation. If families are wavering, discharge planners can make a significant difference. Thoughtful discharge planners will make themselves familiar with hospice benefits, talk to hospital spiritual counselors and practice discussing the options.
Who is Eligible?
If a doctor has certified the patient’s prognosis as not longer than six months, the patient is eligible for hospice. This applies to anyone of any age, with any type of illness. As with cancer patients, people with ALS, kidney disease, and Alzheimer's disease, for example, can also benefit greatly from hospice care. Alzheimer's disease, in particular, is often overlooked for hospice referral because of its slow progression. People with Alzheimer's are usually referred to hospice when they are in the final stages of the illness.
If the patient is not mentally competent or is physically unable to communicate, the decision may be made by a healthcare proxy. If an advance directive has been filled out, the family generally knows who has been designated the healthcare proxy. In the absence of a healthcare proxy, caregivers and medical advisers should take guidance from a living will, if one exists.