Hospice : Rough Draft Of A Terminally Ill Person 's Life

A survey was conducted in 2000 on more than 9,000 patients discharged from more than 2,000 hospices on the services they received (Carlson, 2007). It revealed that 22% of them received five major palliative care services, which varied among the hospices. These palliative care services were nursing care, physician care, medication management, psychological care, and caregiver support. Approximately 14% of the hospices provided all five services and 33% provided only one or two services. Only 59% of these patients received medication management services. These included administering medication, dispensing correct dosages, and setting and following dosage schedule.

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.

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).

The ability for a patient to qualify for hospice care is based on the physician’s determination that their illness is not responding to treatment and the patient has 6 months or less to live. Illnesses that require hospice care in the adult population take a more predictable pattern than in pediatric and perinatal patients. This is not to say that the process of hospice care and dying is easier for the patients, their families, or the hospice team, but that there is more research in how to prepare for such care. Non-hospice nurses have a stronger foundation and better understanding of death and dying with regard to patients at this stage of life that allows them to be better equipped to initiate discussions of hospice care. It takes special training in psychosocial support to give adequate hospice care, but the base knowledge of nursing is more prepared for discussing end-of-life-care with older patients than with children. It is this ability to communicate that allows them to build the rapport that is crucial to improving the quality of dying.

Hospice Care: This is a program that care for terminally ill patients. Being terminally ill does not mean that you are on your last breath or that you are unable to move. Contrary to what some people may believe not everyone going to this type have only a few days or month to live. The aim of Hospice Care is to make sure each patient is pain free and comfortable enough that they can spend the rest of their life in an environment that is not emotionally distress which can be brought on by fear and in some cases

The Hospice nursing care identifies that the purpose of a hospice is to make available “palliative care to terminally ill patients and supportive service to patients, their families and significant others, 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week in both home and facility based settings.” (https://hospicenet.org/html/medicare.html). A terminally ill patient is one who has been identified by a physician having an illness for which a cure is not possible. “Palliative care” is treatment that relieves discomfort and enhances quality of life. Often the patient, his or her family and physician will decide what might constitute palliative care.

Hospice is one form of palliative care to assist with pain management and take a holistic approach to the dying person.

“Hospice care provides support for people in the last phase of life-limitting illness through expert medical care, pain and symptom management, and emotional and spiritual support so that they may live as fully and comfortably as possible” (Tabloski, 2014, p.255). Like you this issue is very familiar to me, as my great grandmother received hospice services at home and the benefits she received were several such as assistance from a physician, nurse, social worker, therapist, spiritual support for her and for the family, and wound care, the service was excellent and she always remained free of pain as it was properly handled. For the family was a relieved to see her peaceful and painless it was very important to us that she did not suffer. So

Hospice care is a team of health care providers who take care of patients who are in the last stages of a serious illness (1). For example, patients with cancer, HIV infection, heart disease, dementia, kidney failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and some neurological disorders (2). This care can be provided by people other than health care providers, it can be done by patient’s family members (2).

Caregivers play an integral role in improving the quality of life for hospice patients. Most of the individuals involved in caring for the terminally ill are family members. However, caring for terminally ill patients can adversely affect the caregiver’s overall health. Gallese, Keysers and Rozzolatti (2004) emphasize that caregivers suffer from worse physical and mental health compared to their non-caregiving counterparts. One of the major causes of poor physical and mental health amongst caregivers entails the high level of stress associated with the care giving role. The caregivers’ stress is caused by a multitude of stressors such as role adjustment, end-of-life decision making and financial strain. Alternatively, stress also arises from the patient’s suffering (Hebert, Arnold & Schultz, 2007).

Hospice care is for someone who has a life expectancy of six months or less, seeking non curative treatment, and has a physician's referral to receive hospice services. Not only does hospice provide care to someone with a cancer diagnosis, but it also provides care to any other terminal diagnoses. A few examples of other terminal diagnoses are dementia, pulmonary and cardiac diseases, and failure to thrive. Palliative care is provided for the patient "to help increase the quality of remaining life" (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014, p. 553). In addition, hospice provides support for both the patient and the entire family. Hospice services can be provided in a variety of settings such as a long term care facility, an acute care hospital, or in the

Hospice care is a family-centered approach that includes a team of professionals: the patient's physician, hospice medical director, RNs, social workers, chaplains, a dietitian, counselors, therapists, home health aides and hospice-trained volunteers. If you are interested in becoming a hospice volunteer, complete training programs are available to help fulfill your calling to this rewarding mission. The team works together by focusing on the patient's and their family's needs, including physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects, as well as providing needed medications, medical equipment and supplies.

My research questions for the capstone project is: Does providing additional education on the role of social workers to hospice admissions staff increase the requests for a social worker among Homestead Hospice patients? The purpose of this study is to see if educating the staff, who are the first point of contact with clients, about the roles of a Hospice social worker will increase social work service requests among clients at Homestead Hospice. I will be collecting how many people accepted or declined a social worker for a period of one month with no education of what a social worker does. I will be collecting this data on my data collection sheet. Then for the following I will show the staff in admission the video I created on the role

A multidisciplinary healthcare team works with the patient and family members to provide the best possible care. The responsibilities of the hospice care team are primarily to manage the patient’s pain and other symptoms, Provide emotional, physical and psychosocial support to the patient, Deliver required medicine and medical supplies, Educates the family on how to care for the patient, special services like speech, occupational and physical therapy as required, caregiver respite service and furthermore provides bereavement counseling to surviving family and friends to help in coping with the loss of their loved one.

Hospice and Palliative Care aids individuals and their families by supporting them through end-of-life situations. When I joined the team of volunteers I realized how beneficial and necessary hospice service is. After much anticipation Seasons was able to launch their first in-patient facility. I worked alongside many other dedicated volunteers planning and preparing for the grand opening, while that was enjoyable seeing all our hard work was beyond satisfying. When the facility opened I also worked as a greeter to encourage a more warm environment for the patients’ families and friends while they prepared for the loss of their loved ones.