What Is Hospice

Life is uncertain and we all know it well. However, we choose to avert our gaze from any health risks lying in the pipeline. Let’s be rational and understand that anything can happen to us or to our dear ones any moment. And if it’s a case of terminal illness that has fallen your way, you need to look at the best that can be provided to the patient. That’s where the concept of hospice emerged and it is now an acquainted term. It is a special approach towards simplifying the anguishes of a fading life. This embraces all palliative health care steps for the dying or terminally ill folks. Once all the treatment alternatives have been explored and doctors declare that the life of the patient is no more than about 6 months; hospice care comes into play. This concept behind it is that death is an expected natural process and should be handled calmly without any brawling. Let’s take an insight of the main features of hospice care.

The main aim of hospice care is to provide the best quality life possible for the terminally ill patients headed towards the end of their life. A group of experts who are trained to handle such individuals are deployed and they together work towards fulfilling the mental, physical and emotional needs of the terminally ill patients. They aim towards providing a stress-free and soothing time, to the otherwise struggling individuals, towards the end and extend a few days of their life by decreasing their anguish.

Hospice care is supervised by specialists who are well trained in end-of-life care, while the patient’s main health care physician continues to be a part of his/her health care team. The hospice team helps the patients in handling their everyday tasks, like cooking, washing, personal hygiene and transportation. Nursing care is also delivered by hospice nurses who are capable to handle the needs of such patients. In special cases, visit from a chaplain is also arranged and counseling is offered to the patient as well his kinfolk. The primary health care physician takes charge of providing medical help in case of pain and other symptoms.

Losing a family member can be very difficult and handling such a patient is even worse. Hospice care provides a supportive assistance in handling such a situation. They emphasize on spending quality time together with family members instead of brooding over something that everyone has to come across sooner or later. This service continues even after the patient passes away and they help the bereaving family with funeral arrangements and provide them emotional strength by counseling services.

There are options of hospice care to be provided within living facility, hospital facility or in individual homes as well where the health care providers visit regularly to deliver their services. There is also an option of nurse care that is available round the clock. In most cases, hospice care is preferably arranged at the individual’s home itself since people like to spend their last days in their home. However, in case of extremely critical conditions like that involving intravenous pain medications, it is recommended that the patient stays in hospital facility for continuous supervision by a doctor. All these types of hospice care are paid services – however, they are not as costly as the medication alone.