Hospice Research Paper

Caring Hospice is a company that will provide nursing care to patients that are terminally ill. The ultimate goal is to insure the patient is kept as comfortable as possible while maintaining dignity during the dying process. This company will send registered nurses to the patient’s home for routine physical assessments, medication teaching and administration, education about terminal diseases and the dying process. The nursing staff will also create and maintain appropriate plans of care for the multi-disciplinary team to provide holistic care to the patient.

Death is inevitable. It is one of the only certainties in life. Regardless, people are often uncomfortable discussing death. Nyatanga (2016) posits that the idea of no longer existing increases anxiety and emotional distress in relation to one’s mortality. Because of the difficulty in level of care for end-of-life patients, the patient and the family often need professional assistance for physical and emotional care. Many family caregivers are not professionally trained in medicine, and this is where hospice comes into play. Hospice aims to meet the holistic needs of both the patient and the patient’s family through treatment plans, education, and advocacy. There is a duality of care to the treatment provided by hospice staff in that they do not attempt to separate the patient’s care from the family’s care. Leming and Dickinson (2011) support that hospice, unlike other clinical fields, focuses on the patient and the family together instead of seeing the patient independent of the family. Many times in hospitals, the medical team focuses solely on the goal of returning the patient back to health in order for them to return to their normal lives. They do not take into account the psychological and spiritual components of the patient’s journey and the journey that the family must take as well. For treatment of the patient, Leming and Dickinson agree that hospice does not attempt to cure patients, and instead concentrates solely

The aim of a hospice is to improve the quality of life of the dying

Hospice is a process to end-of-life care and a kind of support facility for terminally ill patients. It provides comforting care, patient-centered care and related services. Comforting care relieves discomfort without improving the patient’s condition or curing his illness. Hospice is extended in a healthcare facility or at home. Its objective is to provide compassionate, emotional, and spiritual care for the dying patient.

Essentially, Hospice and palliative care focus on managing symptoms when a patient is deemed to have 6 months or less to live and allows patients to live out their lives away from a hospital or nursing home setting. Partially the reason why most people, including me, haven’t heard that much about Hospice is most likely because it is intended for people at the very end of their lives. However, another major reason is addressed in Gawande’s book, and it revolves around the idea that doctors don’t inform their patients every time that Hospice is really an option. Gawande admits himself throughout his book that like most doctors, he is always over-optimistic and focus on the treatment of the disease, forgetting to focus on the idea of just managing the symptoms in cases where treatment would only prolong the inevitable or giving too many choices for families to make. Gawande explains “All-out treatment, we tell the incurably ill, is a train you can get off at any time- just say when”, however other options are often never talked about (2014, p. 187). One example from Being Mortal is the story of Sara Monopoli, who faced an incurable form of cancer at a rather young age. Sara, along with her family and husband, never focused on just symptom management, but rather what new and outrageous treatment can be done

Many terminally-ill patients give up hope when treatments are no longer available to help them and hospice care is given to them as an option. However, hospice care has proven itself to provide the best quality care for the last six months of the dying. The purpose of hospice is to provide the best care for terminally-ill patients at the end stage of their lives. Hospice offer services to support too many aspects a patient’s life such as medical, legal, spiritual care. Hospice includes art therapists, music therapists, and certified chaplains on the palliative team.

Long-term care is a result of people having terminal conditions, disabilities, illnesses, injuries, or being elderly. The purpose of long-term care is to provide services to people and to aid people at a time in their lives when they cannot depend on themselves to maintain daily activities. There are many variations of long-term care available – such as home care, adult day care, and independent and assisted living, personal care facilities, nursing homes, and hospice.

Hospice care is a model of care that focuses on relieving symptoms and supporting patients with a life expectancy of six months or less (Altshuler, 2013). For most nurses, caring for a dying elder (individual aged 65 years and above) is a discrete, time-limited experience that begins with first contact, often in a hospital, emergency room, or long term care facility, and ends with the death itself (Phillips & Reed, 2008).

Hospice care has not been around for very longs but it is one of the fastest growing medical fields in the country, with over 1.58 million patients being cared for in 2010 alone. Hospice is an important part of caring for terminally ill patients and helps the families and loved ones to grieve.

I do home health CNA jobs and trying to get in to be a CNA in a hospice home health and later on, I would like to be a visiting nurse to a hospice patients. I conducted an interview to one hospice psychologist I know and the information I’ve learned is intense and I’ve realized that I wanted to know more about this field. So what is hospice? Hospice is a program of care for terminally ill patients and their love ones; it’s a program about life and about living life to the fullest until the end. One professional that can help what’s they are going through is psychologist. They assessed what the patient and family needs and help them to understand and evaluate the options that meet their needs. Many psychologist have compassion working on hospice,

Hospice care focuses on support, encouragement and care of the dying person and family, with the goal of facilitating a peaceful, honorable and dignified death. Hospice care is based on holistic concepts, stresses and emphasizes care to improve quality of life rather than cure, supports the family and clients through the dying process, and supports the family through bereavement. Hospice is a unique area in healthcare service as it can be carried out in a variety of settings, the most common being home and the nursing home based unit or the hospital. It focuses on preventing, treating and eliminating discomfort and pain. Hospice care is a type of care that is

Hospice works with the dying patient to come up with specific dose 's of pain medications and any other medication 's to relieve symptoms of illness, to allow the patient a level of comfort through out the dying process.  These medications may have to be adjusted time and time again to meet the patients pain levels and suffering of symptoms throughout the process.  Messages, physical therapy, and the body adjusted in different positions are done to circulate blood, help with stiffness, and prevent bed sores.

Hospice care is a faculty place where most dying patients would go when their lives are near the end. It is also a comfort place where a terminally ill patient, providing care and console to their pain.

While sadness plays a big role in hospice…it is also true that there is happiness, positive reflection as well as wisdom. This month we want to recognize our two volunteers Connie and Paul Steber who have been volunteers for Hospice since June and considered it a true blessing to share the stories and experiences of patients who are living through a very emotional and difficult time. They are honored to be making a difference and to be able to share the stories of the patients like James Ellis best known as the Coach, who enjoys their company but most of all watching a football game, especially if his favorite team is on the winning end. The Stabers enjoy conversing with James and listening to his stories. There are also times when James and

Hospice is a component of palliative care. A person does not necessarily have to be dying in order to see a palliative care specialist. This is where the service is often underutilized in the hospital. In the 18 months I have been a nurse, I have cared for many patients with chronic illnesses who have dealt with symptoms that have severely impacted their quality of life. Most of the time, it seems as though the patient’s care providers are interested in treating the patient’s acute problems. My experience has been that the symptoms are often overlooked or are being treated in a manner that is to the dissatisfaction and discomfort of the patient.