What Does Hospice Care Provide?

What it takes to make a person need hospice care isn’t usually anything good, unless they’ve lived for over ninety years, so most people avoid the topic. 

Unfortunately, that means most people don’t understand what hospice care is and can be nervous when a need for it arises. 

If you, or someone in your life you care about, require hospice care- and aren’t sure what to expect, here are the primary things it can do for you.

Palliative Care

This type of medical care is also known as ‘keeping the patient comfortable.’  It’s not meant to diagnose or cure the patient. Instead, the purpose of palliative care is to ease the symptoms of diseases and injuries. 

All hospice care services offer palliative care, but not all palliative care is done through hospices.  This option allows people in hospice care to live comfortably, without having to feel the pain of their symptoms.  How this care is administered changes case to case, from medications to physical therapy.

On-Call Support

When any patient is recovering from an injury or illness or is on palliative care for something more long term, problems aren’t unheard of to loved ones. 

On-call support is there to show up whenever there’s a concern or question. This option can offer peace of mind to the family of patients and reassure the patient themself.

Physical Support

Most people in need of palliative care need help to allow them to live their daily lives. This type of help could be in the form of assisting them to eat, bathe, or be mobile. 

This physical care could also mean in-home physical therapy so that the patient doesn’t have to deal with going to and from medical clinics.  Physical support isn’t always necessary, but most hospice care services offer it to all clients.

Emotional Support

Our physical bodies aren’t the only things that need to recover from trauma or cope with long term illness. From something as simple as a willing ear to the clinical care of a therapist, emotional support can ease patients through this part of their lives. 

Emotional support is just as vital, if not more important, than supporting patients physically. It helps patients come to terms with life changes, and work towards whatever future they see for themselves.

Ease Living

From “tuck-in calls” that make sure the patient wakes up and goes to bed healthily, to picking up prescriptions, there’s a lot of hospice care can do outside of recognizable medical care. 

The primary goal of these medical services is to allow patients to live their lives comfortably without being held back by their medical needs.  

Flexible Care

Hospice care bends to work with whatever the patient needs. Whether it’s cancer, a car accident, HIV/AIDs, or any number of other possible medical situations, hospice care works patient by patient.

Everyone who needs attention gets the exact care that will help them and has a unique plan to help them heal or be comfortable in their current situation. It’s necessary for so many people and deserves to be understood, so people don’t fear it.

Featured image credit – Robert Kneschke/Shutterstock