The For A Patient For Hospice Care

This author’s personal perceptions concerning patients facing a lingering terminal illness, have been shaped by over 20 years of critical care nursing experience. Facing death and illness on a daily basis requires self-examination and a high degree of comfort with one’s own mortality, limits and values. Constant exposure to the fragility of life forces respect for the whole person and the people who love them. A general approach to patients who are actively dying is to allow them to define what they want and need during this time. The nurse’s role

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

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.

1.1 Caring for patients at the end of life is a challenging task that requires not only the consideration of the patient as a whole but also an understanding of the family, social, legal, economic, and institutional circumstances that surround patient care.

Caring for patients at the end of life is a challenging task that requires not only the consideration of the patient as a whole but also an understanding of the family, social, legal, economic, and institutional circumstances that surround patient care.

Nurses: Assist the patients and families to cope with the end-of-life process such as assessing and

Hospice is compassionate care provided to patients facing terminal illness or illness for which there is no cure. These patients are diagnosed with an illness from which they will never recover and usually have a life prognosis of six months or less (Hospice Foundation of America, 2014). The goal of hospice care is improving quality of life and managing the symptoms of disease and the dying process. The care hospice offers is focused on pain management and emotional and spiritual support for both the patient and family (National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, 2012). Hospice care can be provided in many different settings, often the patient’s own home. Hospice care can also be provided in hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities and free-standing hospice centers and is available to patients of all ages (NHPCO, 2012). A patient receiving care in a hospice program has a team of healthcare individuals that can consist of the patients own physician, nurses, home health aides, clergy, social workers, and speech and physical therapists (NHPCO, 2012). Usually, a care plan is developed by the hospice team and care of the patient is provided by family members with the support of the hospice staff (NHPCO, 2012). Nurses make regular visits to the patient and family and are on call 24/7. Once enrolled in a hospice program hospice covers everything that will be needed to care for you, from medications to manage pain to

This might be one reason why some patients choose conventional treatment instead of choosing a hospice program, there is many other factors that may contribute to this decision such as; financial status. This research will help give nurses a stronger knowledge base of characteristics and advantage of hospice care. In addition, nurses will be able to explain the advantages of Hospice programs to more of their patients, thus, they will be able to educate and encourage more families to choose hospice care. Not only will it help the patient live out a comfortable life it will also help the caregivers with

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).

End of life issues involving education on palliative care and hospice; are these issues important to you and your loved ones? The purpose of this paper is to discuss end of life care and how the legislative process affects this important topic. As the American population keeps growing, so does the amount of an aging population. Is the amount of training and education in nursing school sufficient for palliative care and hospice? Do we need to provide more training to the medical field to help support the growing need for end of life care? At some point in our careers we might be faced with helping someone in their final days. Being educated and having the ability to provide appropriate care is part of our scope of practice. (American Nurses Association, 2010, pp.1-2)

This nursing organization has a magnificent amount of power and responsibility in improving the expert care in illnesses and diseases acquired by older adults through advocacy, dissemination of knowledge and the provision of continuation of education (“About GAPNA,” 2016.). Similarly, the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association’s political position is to enhance expert care in serious illness and to advance nursing competence through education, leadership and research (“Shared Mission,” 2016). It also creates programs and other learning resources to advance competent care in complicated health conditions (“Shared Mission,” 2016). Furthermore, its responsibility extends to utilizing the best practices of hospice and palliative care to support those who are in need (“Shared Mission,”

Many dementia patients that are nearing end of life don’t get the care that they need, and this has become an issue. Healthcare personnel need to practice more effective communication, and understand possible “causes of anxiety, fear and resistance to care when carrying out interventions” (Regan, Tapley, & Jolley, 2014, p. 37). Pain relief methods have not been very effective in dementia patients, and in order to provide good end of life care, healthcare providers need to properly assess patients with dementia to adequately treat their pain as they near end of life. It is difficult to tell with dementia patients when they near end of life if they are in pain, which can explain why healthcare providers may not be able to alleviate certain symptoms adequately. Studies have shown that symptom management and the showing of compassion are not as effective as they should be in dementia patients, and this article focuses on ways in which this can be

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.

Care team members need to be aware of this tendency to overestimate survival, to reduce residents’ and families’ potential distress.