Trusting the Hospice Team with Your Loved Ones
How to Choose the Right Hospice Care for Your Loved One
Deciding to get hospice care for your loved one can be emotionally exhausting and even frightening. It can be hard enough to admit that your loved one has reached the stage that hospice care is needed, let alone actually entrusting your loved one to strangers who will provide the ultimate care.
It’s important that you do comprehensive research to find the right hospice team for your loved one. Then you can start building a relationship with the team for the benefit of your whole family. The right hospice team will earn your trust with its supportive and compassionate services. Some of the services your family might receive include:
Comfort Measures
The primary goal of the hospice worker will be to provide comfort measures to the patient – to provide the best quality of life possible at the end of life. That may mean managing medication to relieve pain or nausea, regularly changing bed sheets or clothing to ensure comfort and sanitation, offering body massage, or even playing soothing music.
Over time, the hospice worker gets to know your loved one intimately in order to respond appropriately to his needs. You will learn to trust the hospice worker based on consistency and efficacy of care. When you are feeling helpless and like there’s nothing you can do, you will rely on the hospice worker to provide those answers and get results.
Family Support
Hospice workers don’t just provide support for those who are facing the end of their lives; they also provide support for the whole family. They answer questions about the patient’s care and symptoms, they provide reassurance, and they offer help where they can. You will come to trust your loved one’s hospice worker as a reassuring source of support and answers. You will your hospice worker to be a compassionate authority.
Financial Counseling
Paying for medical care, hospice care, and eventual funeral costs can add up, and your family may struggle to meet all these expenses. Hospice care organizations also provide financial counseling to help your family figure out how to pay for what your loved one needs. You’ll quickly come to trust your hospice provider when you are sharing such personal details and are getting the support you need.
Spiritual Counseling
The end of life is a time for anyone to grapple with questions about what comes after and what is the meaning of it all. Even if you are considering the end of someone else’s life, you can still wrestle with these questions. Hospice care organizations offer spiritual counseling for your family and your loved one.
You may be able to visit a support group or see a counselor to get spiritual advising, or a counselor may come to your home to counsel your loved one and your family. You will develop a bond over that time.
Grief Support
When your loved one passes on, support from your hospice team does not end. The team will offer grief support in the form of both individual and group counseling. You can start getting grief support even while your loved one is still living. The process starts when you know the end is near, and getting that support will help you manage the process a little easier.
It can be hard to welcome a stranger into your home or your family. But the right hospice care team will build your trust over time with the caring and consistent services offered to your whole family. You will supported and will feel like you are in good hands. Even if you struggle with what’s happening to your loved one, you will have the assurance of authoritative and compassionate support, which can make the whole process a bit easier.
Americare Hospice and Palliative Care offers comprehensive hospice care and support for the whole family. In addition to providing comfort measures for a patient at the end of their life, we offer services like grief counseling, spiritual counseling, financial guidance, and more for the family. We offer hospice and palliative care in your home or in a treatment facility, and we do everything we can to make those final days as comfortable as possible. Call us today to learn more about our services.
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1212 N. Spencer St., Suite #2
Mesa, Arizona 85203
Office: (480) 726-7773
Fax: (480) 726-7790
Email: info@americarehospice.org
