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Who Does Hospice Actually Help?

So we know that hospice helps dying patients, but that is a broad spectrum of people. What does that mean exactly? Who is actually on hospice service? That is a question we get all the time. If you’re going to help people change their perspectives on hospice, you have to start with answering those questions.

There is no “typical” hospice patient. As one of the largest, most respective hospice providers in the Southeast, we’ve served everyone from seniors to children. We have cared for patients who were a few months old and patients who were well past their century marks. We have patients who are so close to death when we care for them that they only last a few hours or days and we have patients who have actually improved and no longer need services.

There is a “rule of thumb” of sorts when it comes to thinking about a hospice patient. That is a simple one: A patient who has an overall prognosis of 6 months should their condition take its normal course. That sounds very clinical doesn’t it? Well, let’s put that another way. A person who has been diagnosed with a disease that cannot be cured and has about six months of life left could greatly benefit from hospice.

These patients often understand that they can pursue aggressive treatment, but that the treatment will most likely have little effect, fail to prolong life and often have worse side effects than the disease symptoms. For those people, hospice does several things to benefit them: It controls pain and symptoms allowing them to live their lives. Those patients want to spend the time they have left doing the things that are important to them, such as spending time with family, getting their affairs in order or achieving goals before they pass away. These people want to stay at home and do things their way. In fact, around 70% of all hospice service is delivered in the home, not in a clinical setting.

If we can help these patients early in the diagnosis, then we can more effectively control that pain and those symptoms than if we begin care late in the course of the disease. But hospice is more than health care. We have staff that helps patients and families prepare for death. We have chaplains who lend an ear to those patients who want to discuss the spiritual issues that lie ahead. We stay in touch with those families who have lost and help them through the grieving process.

We always say that hospice is about living, and that is a true statement. We help our patients be comfortable so that they can remain in control of their lives and face the disease on their own terms

There is another very important person that hospice helps, and that is the caregiver.

When an older person has a life-limiting disease, they are usually relying on an adult child or spouse to care for them. This is a stressful situation for these caregivers. They are usually so focused on caring for the ones they love that they are unable to spend time with them in the final days.

These caregivers often call us because they need help and don’t know what to do. When hospice comes into their home and begins caring for their loved one, they can go back to being a daughter, son or spouse. Knowing that you’re going to lose a loved one is stressful enough, caring for them in their final days alone is even more stressful.

Caregivers don’t have to do it alone. There are resources that can help. Hospice is one of the only Medicare/Medicaid benefits that provide services for the entire family, not just the patient. Caregivers owe it to themselves to find out options for caring for their loved ones.

If you’d like to learn more about how we help patients and caregivers, visit our website at www.communityhch.com. There, you’ll find resources that will help you learn more about hospice.

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