09 Jul The Top 5 Facts About Hospice Care
There are many misconceptions about hospice care. When you consider the actual statistics and read about hospice care, it can be the ideal break from toxic treatments. It may provide your body the strength it needs to fight that disease into remission. Below are some of the nuances of facts that can totally change your outlook on the prospects of receiving hospice care in the critical moments of your life.
A Hospice Isn’t a Place, it’s an Evolving Philosophy of Care
A hospice isn’t a physical place. A hospice is an evolving concept of pragmatism in care strategies. Rather than looking for a cure to the debilitating infirmities that can occur from diseases, hospice care considers what can be done to preserve and comfort the body without risking toxic chemo or other experimental procedures. Hospice care can extend the lives of the terminally ill. When the body isn’t being stressed with ineffective lab rat treatments, it logically produces the energy to resist diseases and death from its own homeostatic volition.
You Can Quit Hospice at Any Time to Pursue Treatments
Although private insurance and Medicare require at least two doctors to certify that you have a grim prognosis of six months or less to live, these are more philosophical than tangible. In reality, there is no certain method of determining anyone’s life expectancy. If you are not satisfied with the care setting of the hospice and would prefer for your loved one to pursue a treatment course after further research on the issue, you are entitled to leave the hospice program at any time. Approximately one-third of patients require hospice care for as little as a few days or weeks (a median time of 18 days).
Hospice Care Rules May Be Changing
Medicare may soon be changing the rules for receipt of hospice care to allow for the pursuit of some curative treatments that require less intensive medical supervision. They have invested in a forty state five-year pilot program to develop the rules and policies that may apply. This evolving philosophy of hospice care is already alive today with more red tape than should be necessary. People may simply leave the hospice to undergo a treatment program at a greater cost in a hospital setting.
Patients Are Not Being Sedated into Apathy
When a patient is put on a morphine drip at a hospice, this is for their general well-being. If they have no effective method of managing their pain, the pain escalates into psychological and physical torment. If you want your loved one to retain peace and tranquility, they will need the most effective pain management possible. In this manner, your loved one will pass away with dignity and respect. Fighting pain and struggling to bear it can be truly exhausting on not just the body but the soul and spirit as well.
Patients Spend Precious Time with Families
A hospice care program is meant to incorporate the entire family into the support network. The nurses and doctors at a hospice care center can help families make sense of incoherent speech and to recognize the signs of morbidity. They are best prepared to help families cope with the final moments of life. You will not have to witness your loved one hooked up to machines in a cold clinical setting.