Is Hospice Care the Answer?

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Here are 13 easy-to-read signs hospice may be right for your family

Patients and loved ones often avoid conversations regarding hospice care. However, feedback from those who have benefitted from it, often reveals that families wish they had considered it sooner. It isn’t necessarily something reserved for a patient’s last few days. When started earlier in the process, hospice care makes a significant and positive impact for patients and families, improving quality of life with the time they have remaining. Pain and symptom management, hospitalization rate, patient and family satisfaction, and even life expectancy improve when individuals receive the services of an interdisciplinary hospice team.

Determining if or when hospice care might be needed for you or a loved one is a personal decision, however some of the common signs below may be an indication that hospice care is the right choice:

• You have been hospitalized or to the emergency room several times in the past six months
• You have been making more frequent phone calls to the physician
• You have started taking medication to lessen physical pain
• You have started spending most of the day in a chair or bed
• You have fallen several times over the past six months
• You have difficulty swallowing
• You started feeling weaker or more tired or are sleeping more
• You have a decrease in appetite and are experiencing significant weight loss
• You require assistance bathing, dressing, eating, getting out of bed or walking
• You have noticed a shortness of breath, even while resting
• A physician has told you that life expectancy is limited to six months or less
• You’ve decided to no longer receive treatments to cure your illness
• There are no further treatments available, and you want to focus care on comfort and relieving symptoms