As seniors face the prospect of being at the end of their lives, their priorities may change. Quality of life often becomes more important than curing their life-limiting conditions. Hospice care services make it easier for families and seniors to find the resources they need to meet that goal.
Unfortunately, there are misconceptions about hospice and how it helps people at the end of life.
Shifting the Focus to Quality of Life
When seniors are ill or facing a life-limiting condition, the focus tends to be on curing the ailment or illness. These curative treatments often aren’t comfortable and can create additional symptoms and problems for patients. Over time, that becomes exhausting and priorities shift. Hospice care shifts the focus to maximizing comfort and quality of life by alleviating symptoms.
Offering Compassionate Support
Hospice providers understand how difficult this stage of life is for aging adults and the people who love them. They have a variety of resources that can help families get the compassionate support they need with a variety of issues. Hospice teams work together to help families feel empowered and respected as they face the loss of someone they love.
Managing Pain and Other Symptoms
Pain and symptom management are issues that are unfortunately not always priorities when patients are still seeking curative therapies. Hospice elder care has access to different types of therapies and treatments. Keeping patients comfortable is the goal, so hospice takes advantage of medications, therapies, and other interventions that are likely to succeed.
Enhancing Emotional and Spiritual Well-being
Another area that hospice care helps with is emotional and spiritual support. Hospice can put families in touch with counseling, spiritual guidance, and bereavement support that helps them cope with the situation they’re facing. This can make facing what is coming much easier for everyone involved.
Supporting Autonomy
The end of someone’s life can tend to inspire some scary feelings. Many patients near the end of life feel out of control and as if everyone else is in charge of what happens to them. Hospice helps patients to have choices and to know that their choices and wishes are respected throughout the process. It’s difficult at the end of life to feel as if everything is out of control. Hospice helps these patients to feel empowered again.
Assisting with Meaningful Connections
At the end of life, having meaningful connections is what is truly important. Hospice makes it easier for families and patients to have the opportunity to experience the connections they need and want to have. They do this by helping patients with hands-on needs, assisting with medical care, and freeing up time and energy for family members. These connections offer companionship, comfort, and emotional support to families when it’s needed most.
Hospice care has an overarching philosophy that compassion, dignity, and respect for autonomy are essential for people nearing the end of life. Hospice providers focus on keeping patients as comfortable as they can while they face the life-limiting conditions they’re battling. This compassionate care helps patients and their families find peace as they edge closer to the end of life.
If you or your aging loved one could benefit from Hospice Care Services in Holly Hill SC, contact the caring staff at Grove Park Hospice, at (803)536-6644.
Providing Hospice & Palliative Care in Orangeburg, Bamberg, & Calhoun Counties.
Our team provides care tailored to each patient and family’s individual needs and preferences. Our commitment to promoting comfort and dignity to persons living with a life‐limiting illness is demonstrated daily by our caring team of professionals and volunteers. Grove Park Hospice provides pain management and symptom control, allowing families to focus on what matters most. Our team of nurses certified nursing assistants, social workers, chaplains and volunteers spend quality time with patients, ensuring they are comfortable and at peace.
Choosing Grove Park Hospice means choosing to live life to its fullest. We focus on enhancing quality of life by offering an array of services to our patients and their families.
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