When Should You Consider Hospice?

  • Diagnosis of a terminal illness
  • Difficult to manage symptoms
  • Uncontrolled pain from underlying cancer
  • Frequent hospitalizations (More than 2-3 hospitalizations in last 6 months for same thing)
  • Dependence on others for most activities of daily living
  • Progressive confusion or restlessness
  • Increasing weakness and fatigue, spending more than 12 hours a day in bed due to fatigue
  • Decreasing appetite or excessive weight loss

Why Hospice?

Hospice is a treatment modality. Meaning just like you would take medications to treat something, the treatment received by patients while on hospice provides a benefit. While some patients and families are looking for help to off load daily tasks and focus on getting day to day activities done, others benefit from hospice by using it as a treatment modality. The frequent check ins, the increased medical scrutiny (frequent nursing visits and close physician oversight), the increased emotional support, the increased spiritual support, and the increased medication monitoring allows patients to live better as well as live longer.

Admission to hospice earlier in the disease process allows patients to focus on quality of life, live more comfortably, and live longer. How? Patients live longer by being better managed, being more closely watched and having all of their needs met. Living life and living longer is more than just taking pills, it’s about love, caring and support. This is the core of what hospice provides.

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