When a loved one is facing the inevitable and you find yourself struggling with the appropriate next steps, it is best to take a beat and consider two things carefully. Why is Hospice a consideration? When do I make the decision?
While the process is intimidating and a bit frightening, hospice care can be the best solution for you and your loved one. Here are a few reasons why people choose hospice care:
- Hospice Care in the comfort of your loved one’s home or in a place they call home: Hospice of Southwest Ohio provides care in your loved one’s private home, long term care facility, assisted living facility or independent living facility which allows them to continue living in a familiar space. Our goal is to keep patients as relaxed and at ease as possible — and often this means staying in the place they call home. Hospice care in the home often includes a combination of the patient’s family caring for them. So, you might help your loved one with activities such as moving around the house, cooking/feeding and administering medication. With routine care, a member of the hospice team will come by the house several times per week to check in and make sure the patient is comfortable and experiencing relief from pain and other symptoms. If the patient is in need of a higher level of care, we offer crisis care, when our team will care for the patient around the clock, while the patient is enduring uncontrolled symptoms until those symptoms are under control.
- Keep your loved ones at peace with dignity and respect: Once your loved one is in hospice care, they are under the care of a hospice nurse who can help with day-to-day needs and is there to support the patient through their final days. Simply by having a compassionate and knowledgeable trained professional in the home, you and your loved one will feel a sense of calm and can relax a bit.
- Emotional support and available resources: Bereavement and grief support services are available to the family when the loved one is in hospice care. When families and loved ones help those suffering from chronic illness, they may experience emotional stress. In addition to patients, hospice caregivers focus on the well-being of the patients’ families too.
- Relief for you and your family: When you’re taking care of a hospice patient in a home setting, it can sometimes feel overwhelming. Balancing the rest of your life while supporting a loved one in hospice can be exhausting. Many people need additional help, have an event they need to attend, travel requirements or just need a little break. Our nurses and social workers are available for short-term respite care in our Madeira Care Center or nursing facilities. Respite care is offered in our Care Center for a five-day period. The room and board during those five days is covered by Medicare each month.
- Allows you to say goodbye at your own pace. Hospice focuses on making sure that you and your family feel comfortable with every decision made involving your care, and it helps you to say goodbye at a pace that is comfortable for everyone involved. This is also a big advantage over other types of care, which may force you to make decisions that you’re not yet ready for.
Now that you are comfortable with the “WHY”… Let’s talk about “WHEN”…
It might be confusing to know whether hospice is right for your relative when they’re dealing with an incurable illness.
Consider the following questions:
- Are they making frequent trips to the ER?
- Are they suffering from unrelieved pain?
- Are they experiencing frequent infections?
- Are they falling frequently or having trouble living on their own?
- Have medical treatments stopped having a curing effect on their disease?
- Have they been diagnosed by a physician with a terminal illness with less than six months to live?
If you’re answering yes to one or more of these questions, hospice care would likely be a good option for your loved one. Your goal is to keep your loved one at peace with dignity and respect
With helping hands and open hearts, Hospice of Southwest Ohio is a source of comfort and care for those facing life-limiting conditions… wherever you call home.
Want to learn more about Hospice of Southwest Ohio?
Our team is available to help with questions regarding hospice care, palliative care, grief support or anything else you have concerns with, 24 hours per day, seven days per week at (513) 770-0820.
