Information on Hospices

Hospice care is palliative care for terminally ill people, which means that its aim is not to extend life, but to provide comfort and support. It does not seek to cure the illness, but to provide dignity to terminally ill patients.

Function

• The function of hospice care for the terminally ill patient is to work with the patient's family or nursing home staff to make the ill person's life as comfortable as possible. Hospice care provides medication, lab services, ambulatory services and some basic living needs. Some hospice providers also provide the patient with legal help, planning a will. Counseling services are provided to family members to help ease their grief.

Features

• Hospice is not a place: it is an approach to care, a philosophy. There is usually a team of people who make up a patient's hospice team, including a primary care physician, a hospice physician, nursing staff, home health aides, social workers, possibly a chaplain and volunteers. The people on the team work together, communicating with one another, to provide the most caring approach to end-of-life care that they can for the patient.

Benefits

• The Hospice Foundation of America states that "one in three people in the United States choose hospice care when they are dying." They do this because of what hospice has to offer. "Hospice deals with the emotional, social and spiritual impact of the disease on the patient and the patient's family and friends." Furthermore, there is a special emphasis in hospice on controlling the patient's pain and limiting suffering.

Considerations

• When considering hospice care, the patient should consult with his or her doctor, who will make a determination if hospice care is appropriate. The Hospice Foundation of America defines this as when the person is "no longer responding to curative treatment options and that the prognosis for life is six months or less if the disease continues its present course." Doctors make this determination using a variety of methods, including measuring functions, activities and needs of the patient using the Karnofsky Performance Scale.

Misconceptions

• There are a few misconceptions about hospice care. One is that this type of care means that "nothing more can be done." Hospice is further care for a patient who cannot be cured of his or her illness. Many incorrectly believe that hospice care is more costly than other types of end-of-life care; however, studies have shown this to be incorrect. It can even be less expensive, as less high-cost technology is used, and family, friends and volunteers provide the majority of care for the patient.