Hospice Care at Home Offers More Than Physical Comfort
When your loved one is ready to focus on comfort for a life-limiting illness, you may feel unsure about what to expect next. You want the best for your loved one and want to feel secure that they have every resource at their disposal. Nothing matters more than ensuring your loved one feels cared for.
Home hospice care is designed to provide more than medical care. Hospice is compassionate care for the whole person. Hospice meets your loved one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, along with support for your entire family. The hospice provider you choose should be committed to comprehensive care, so you can experience the guidance, steadiness, and peace of mind you need during a difficult time.
Home Hospice Care Helps Your Loved One Feel Safe and Comfortable
The most essential goal during hospice is to help your loved one feel as free as possible from pain, while maintaining dignity and the highest quality of life possible.
A leading hospice care team brings care right to your loved one, so they have everything they need to feel comfortable and cared for in a familiar space, surrounded by family and friends.
Hospice often includes:
- Medications, supplies, and equipment.
- A registered nurse case manager to coordinate an individualized plan of care.
- Collaboration between your hospice physician and your loved one’s doctors.
- 24/7 on-call nursing for questions and concerns.
You’ll feel relief knowing that your loved one’s specific needs are taken care of. As the hospice team gives care to your loved one, they should also be highly responsive. An excellent team will always walk you through what’s happening, what to expect, and what you can do to feel empowered.
How Home Hospice Care Supports Emotional Needs For Your Loved One and Your Family
Heavy emotions are completely normal for everyone involved during hospice. Your loved one may feel a range of emotions, including fear and uncertainty. Your family may feel grief, exhaustion, or pressure to ensure everything is “going right.” Your hospice provider makes room for all of these feelings with meaningful emotional support.
These resources for you and your loved one’s emotional health are a part of hospice care:
- Social work: Medical social workers offer encouragement and help in finding community resources. They can also guide you through emotions, help your family navigate difficult decisions, and offer encouragement.
- Volunteers: Trained community volunteers simply want to offer companionship and support for those who are experiencing this part of life’s journey. These volunteer hospice caregivers offer to be present with your loved one, listen, share stories, and more. These loving volunteers just want to be there to help in any way they can, reminding you that your community is behind you.
- Respite care: Family members often experience fatigue when serving as caregivers. Providing care can be meaningful and exhausting at the same time. Respite care helps you regroup and get a break from caregiving, while your loved one is cared for in an inpatient setting.
- Bereavement support: Grief isn’t just a passing feeling. You deserve consistent support throughout the grieving process. A deeply caring hospice team can offer help with bereavement after your loved one passes, along with follow-ups for up to 15 months to help you process grief in a healthy way.
Spiritual Care In Hospice Is Available for Everyone
Hospice services also include spiritual care from a chaplain, who will visit your loved one’s home to provide encouragement, wisdom, guidance, and comfort.
Spiritual support during hospice is inclusive of all beliefs, and it’s not one-size-fits-all. No matter your loved one’s experience with spirituality, a hospice chaplain meets people where they are to provide counseling, conversation, reading, prayer, and listening in a way that completely honors your loved one’s preferences.
What To Look For in An Emotionally Intelligent Home Hospice Care Provider
Choosing your hospice provider is an important decision. You want to feel confident that your loved one will receive the best care possible. Seek out a team with strong values and comprehensive services.
Look for:
- Patience: Your home hospice care team should validate your feelings, understand what you’re going through, listen calmly to your questions, and move at your pace.
- Honesty: The care team should offer clear communication that’s both direct and sensitive, so you can make the best decisions for your loved one and family.
- Compassion: The team must be committed to making you and your loved one feel completely cared for. They should believe that everyone deserves respect and dignity.
An emotionally intelligent team knows how to guide families and loved ones through this part of life. This skillful and kind approach allows you to feel braver, calm, seen, and understood.
Bring Compassion Home With Extraordinary Hospice Care
If your loved one’s next step is hospice, look for a team that is committed to more than just medical care for your loved one’s symptoms. See if the home hospice care team also emphasizes emotional and spiritual support.
If they do, this hospice caregiving team is worth exploring further. As you and your family enter this new phase, you want to know that someone is walking beside you. A team that cares for you emotionally and spiritually is exactly who you want by your side.
