When Is it Time for Hospice Care?
How do you know when it is time for a loved one to enter hospice care? It can be a very personal decision for families. Choosing hospice care means ending curative treatment. But it also means entering comfort care.
Are the treatments no longer working? Or are they taking too much of a toll on your loved one? Would your loved one rather spend their days and nights at home, than in a hospital? These are all things you and your loved one will need to consider as you debate whether it is time for hospice care.
It is important to discuss these options as early as possible, while your loved one still can play an active role in their treatment, and decide how they want to proceed.
Signs It Might Be Time
While there is no one sign that hospice care is the best route, medical experts often point to several signs that can give you an indication that you might want to consider turning to hospice.
Some of those signs include:
- Your loved one’s appetite is disappearing and they have no interest in eating
- Your loved one spends much of their day and night sleeping
- They withdraw from family and friends and things that used to interest them
- Frequent hospital admissions
- Your loved one is confused or unaware of their surroundings
- They can no longer control of their bladder and bowel and can no longer use the bathroom on their own
- Every day tasks, including feeding themselves, brushing their hair and using the bathroom, are difficult or impossible to do
- Your loved one has un-controlled pain or shortness of breath
- They have frequent or recurring infections
- They’ve had a rapid decline in overall health, despite medical attention and treatments
Decide If It Is Time to End Curative Treatments
Choosing to end curative treatments can be difficult. While families often hold onto hope that treatments such as chemotherapy will cure their loved ones' illness, at times that doesn’t happen. Chemotherapy can be a miracle worker, curing many cancers. But others are beyond cure, and the side effects of continuing chemo can take their toll on the patient.
It is at that time that a doctor may suggest to families that they consider hospice care. That is a decision you and your loved one must make together. Ultimately, it is their choice if they would like to continue treatments, or choose a different route. Under hospice care, all curative treatments stop.
Is Comfort-Based Care The Right Approach?
Choosing hospice means choosing comfort-based care. Is that the route your loved one wants to go? Is your loved one choosing quality of life versus how long they will live? Instead of taking measures to cure a disease, comfort care strives to keep your loved one comfortable in their final days, weeks, months. Often that means pain medication, as much as a patient might need.
Hospice also provides an in-home aide to come twice a week to help bathe and take care of your loved one in the most comfortable way possible. They also provide social workers and a chaplain as needed. In addition, some hospices provide other comfort measures such as music therapy and more. Find out what services your local hospice offers,and if this is the approach your loved one wants to take.
Here to Help
If you are looking for help with Hospice Care, our professionals at Visiting Angels Santa Clarita are here for you. We provide a variety of home care services, including specialized care, which also includes end of life care. Even when choosing hospice care, an additional layer of home care services is often beneficial for families.
Hospice nurses and aides usually come to the home one to two times a week, which leaves many other days that families provide care on their own with no other hands-on help. Visiting Angels Santa Clarita can help supplement that care with our trained professionals. Our expert team of caregivers serves clients in Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley. To learn more about our services, call us at 661-263-2273, or fill out an online form here.