What is Hospice?
Understanding hospice or end-of-life care
Hospice or end-of-life care focuses on improving the quality of life for you or your loved one when faced with life-limiting illness. We believe that the primary goals of hospice care are to provide comfort and promote the dignity of terminally ill people while relieving physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. Hospice care neither prolongs nor hastens the dying process. It is palliative—offering soothing, calming and relief—not curative.
Where does hospice care take place?
Hospice care is a philosophy or approach to care rather than a specific place. We may provide hospice in your home, nursing home, foster home or assisted living facility. Whether we provide home hospice or care elsewhere, Serenity Hospice focuses on palliative care and pain management.
What types of treatment are provided through hospice care?
Hospice offers holistic care, so it focuses on the whole person, not just the disease. With our holistic approach to care, we concentrate on your needs as you face a life-limiting illness, as well as your entire family’s needs. The hospice team attends to your practical concerns—such as insurance coverage, transportation and assistance with bathing—in addition to your emotional and spiritual needs, including caregiver stress, grief and loss. This holistic care is provided by our interdisciplinary team including the physician, nurse, social worker, chaplain, pharmacist, nursing assistant, nutritionist, physical therapist and volunteers. Serenity also offers various complementary and alternative hospice therapies to meet the physical and emotional needs of all our patients and families.
What is the difference between palliative care and hospice care?
Hospice care is usually provided only during the final few months of a person’s life. Those with a life-limiting illness may begin to receive palliative care earlier to relieve pain or manage physical symptoms and to assist in coping with the impact on daily life and family members. Although there is a difference between palliative care and hospice care, both relieve suffering and improve the quality of life for you or your loved one.
Is hospice care the same as home health nursing?
Two primary differences exist between hospice care and home health nursing…
First, any patient with a skilled medical care need is qualified to receive home health nursing. The patient may be recuperating from surgery or require intravenous medication for an infection from which they are expected to recover. Alternatively, home hospice care is limited to persons with a life-limiting illness—usually with a life expectancy of six months or less—with a focus on holistic care and pain management, not cure.
Second, patients receiving homebound nursing care are primarily visited by a nurse (although additional services such as physical or occupational therapy are sometimes ordered), while those in our home hospice care receive the services of an entire interdisciplinary team with expertise in holistic end-of-life care.
First, any patient with a skilled medical care need is qualified to receive home health nursing. The patient may be recuperating from surgery or require intravenous medication for an infection from which they are expected to recover. Alternatively, home hospice care is limited to persons with a life-limiting illness—usually with a life expectancy of six months or less—with a focus on holistic care and pain management, not cure.
Second, patients receiving homebound nursing care are primarily visited by a nurse (although additional services such as physical or occupational therapy are sometimes ordered), while those in our home hospice care receive the services of an entire interdisciplinary team with expertise in holistic end-of-life care.
Call Serenity Hospice Today To learn more about when to consider hospice care for yourself or a loved one, or to begin our convenient intake process, call us anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - 503.639.0600.