presented by Adam J. Sparks
Not everyone wants to die, but we all do at some point. The question is not whether you want to die, but how you want to die. If you care for someone with a grave illness, or if you care for an older adult relative, hospice care affects you, your family, and the dying person.
Sometimes you will hear a doctor say, “There’s nothing further that can be done.” Don’t believe this statement. There is always something that can be done. Unfortunately, what can be done may not prolong life, but there is always a valid treatment to bring comfort. This is a promise, and hospice delivers on that promise.
What is Hospice?
Hospice is an idea, not a place. The idea is that if someone you love has an incurable illness, and treatment to prolong life and keep the illness under control no longer works, there is still something that medical science can do. Even if life cannot be prolonged, comfort can always be provided, and it should be provided effectively.
Although hospice is an idea not dependent on a particular place or facility, hospice is delivered to the patient and the family at a place. The place is most often the patient’s home because that’s where most people would like to be in their final months. Sometimes a patient may need a specific type of care that cannot be provided at home or the primary caregiver is too frail or ill to provide care. Then hospice may be delivered somewhere other than the home of the patient. When hospice care is provided outside the home, every effort is made to make the place as homelike as possible. Making a hospital room or a nursing home room homelike takes imagination and work.
Wherever hospice care is provided for the patient, the family should expect to have 24-hour-a-day access to the patient. Children should be allowed to visit, and within reason, pets should have access to the patient. Hospice care is directed at the entire family, so wherever it’s provided, it consists of more than just doctors, nursing care and medications for comfort. Some of the additional comfort that hospice provides to the patient and family are, spiritual guidance (Chaplin) independent of religious background, social work, volunteers and home health aides.
Look for Part 2 of this article in our June issue.
Adam J. Sparks is Delta Hospice’s Community Director for the Temecula Valley Office. You can always get answers to your Hospice questions by calling Adam directly at 909-438-4407.