How to Get Hospice Care At Home

When it comes time to consider hospice care for your loved one, you may be faced with a variety of options — specifically, how to get hospice care at home. Understanding exactly what hospice care is and how it works are great steps to discover the best way that it can be provided for your loved one.

What is Hospice Care?

Many think that hospice is a place itself, particularly where patients who are terminally ill reside; in actuality, it’s a type of holistic care for such patients, allowing them to live their best quality of life when treatment has stopped working. This type of care provides comfort for the patient’s family, as well.

Hospice care is provided by a hospice team, which can typically consist of:

• Your loved one’s primary care physician
• The hospice medical director
• The RN case manager
• A social worker
• A chaplain
• A bereavement counselor
• A home health aide
• A hospice volunteer

These professionals each hold specific roles that encourage the holistic philosophy of hospice care: caring for the mind, body, and spirit to ensure the patient’s overall well being. This includes counseling for the family members, as well.

Hospice Care At Home

Because hospice care is for the total comfort and well being of your loved one, it can be provided in the home. While there are inpatient facilities that provide hospice care, this is only necessary if required by your loved one’s condition.

However, for many patients, being relocated to a hospice facility may be jarring and uncomfortable, which counteracts the premise of the comfort that hospice care is intended to provide. Such services can include:

• Specialized therapy. These sessions can include art therapy, music therapy, and other focused areas that can help your loved one on a mental and emotional level.
• Emotional counseling. Through hospice, your loved one may be provided a counselor for emotional and spiritual peace.
• Home assistance. Hospice care includes help with activities of daily living, or ADLs. A home aide will be provided to assist your loved one with services such as light household chores, eating, bathing, personal hygiene, and simple companionship.
• Pain and symptom supervision. Your loved one’s hospice care team will create a plan that will allow management of your loved one’s pain in a way that is non-invasive and comfortable for him or her.
• Dietary care. Because your loved one’s condition may prohibit proper digestion, it’s important to assess and adjust his or her diet as needed, which hospice care can provide.