What Are The Goals Of Hospice Care?

Has your loved one been diagnosed with a terminal illness? Has conventional hospital care lost effectiveness? Then this article is just for you. We know how hard it gets to know that no matter how much you want, you can’t help your loved one. Hospice care is your best alternative when hospital treatment is no longer efficient.

What is Hospice Care?

Hospice care is a specialized set of services provided by a team of professionals and customized based on the needs of the patients. It has nothing to do with curative treatments, even though many patients tend to see positive results during hospice care and go back again to fight against their diseases. I’s eligibility criteria require that only the patients, with less than 6 months remaining life, qualify for the services. The patient’s physician can estimate the remaining time of the patients to see whether they are eligible. However, as mentioned, many patients outlive 6 months and go back to curative services thanks to the effectiveness of hospice care. Hospice plans are unique for each patient but strive for the same goal for everyone. Let’s see which are the goals that hospice aims to achieve.

What Goals Does Hospice Care Aim To Achieve?

The primary goal of hospice care is to improve the patients’ quality of life and make their remaining time as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. It allows them to spend quality time with their loved ones. To do so, hospice provides non-curative pharmacological physical, emotional and spiritual support to the patients. Indeed, hospice may try to help to deal with stress with music therapy, for instance. Symptom and pain management is one of the important pillars that help hospice achieve its primary goal. They make the patients feel in control of their lives. Thanks to the counseling services, hospice also improves the emotional well-being of the patients, making sure all goals and dreams are understood and realized. The hospice’s personal care makes the patients feel like their healthy selves. Besides, hospice takes care of the family members and other caregivers who may be under a lot of burden and stress because of the challenging journey their loved one is passing through. Hospice, hence, provides respite care to let caregivers take a break from heavy responsibilities. Hospice also provides bereavement services even after the death of the patients.