Patient-Centered Care and How It Can Help Your Loved Ones
The Positive Effects of Hospice Care on Your Loved One’s Quality of Life
No one wants to hear that their loved one has exhausted all their options for treatment, nor that they are likely to die. Many people focus their energy on fighting to find that treatment option or cure that is going to keep their loved one alive. But what they have a hard time understanding is that those options won’t actually extend their loved one’s life, and instead, those efforts can make the quality of what life is left far worse.
Hospice and palliative care both patient-centered care models that provide what the patient needs to make their quality of life as good as it can be. Hospice care is designed for those who are nearing the end of their lives, and palliative care is designed to improve quality of life for those who are chronically ill or have serious injury. Here are a few of the ways that this patient-centered care can help your loved one:
Creating a Home-Like Environment
Most people don’t like hospitals, clinics, doctor’s offices, or other care facilities. They don’t like the impersonal feel of the space. They feel like just another number, and they don’t feel a true connection with any of the people around them. Imagine how that feeling can be amplified for someone facing a serious illness or the end of their life.
People who are struggling with serious illness and are facing their own mortality need to feel a sense of place and connection. Patient-centered care provides a home-like environment for patients or provides care directly in their home. They can be surrounded with their own home or with belongings like their bed spread, their pillow, photos of loved ones, knick knacks, and more. Feeling a sense of home can help patients feel at peace, which can improve their mental health and even relieve their physical pain.
Offer Greater Spiritual Engagement
Serious illness and getting the news that you have a limited amount of time left on this earth will make anyone question where they are going, how they have spent their life, and how they want to spend the remainder of their life. People can grapple with these issues whether they have been faithful their whole lives or they have never had a belief in a higher power.
Hospice care provides spiritual counseling for those who desire it. A priest or other spiritual leader can meet with the patient and help them explore their feelings about faith and spirituality. They can help patients move past guilt, come to terms with their personal beliefs, and live their final days with a greater sense of joy and purpose.
Improve Quality of Relationships
When people get sick, they need the people around them the most, and that can make them reflect on their relationships. This is especially true if they know they are dying. They may have regrets about some of the things they’ve done in their relationships, or they may wish that some of their relationships were closer.
Hospice care provides counseling wherever patients need it. That can include individual counseling for the patient or family counseling, both of which can improve those relationships. That can lead to a greater sense of happiness in those final days, and it can help the family through their grieving process.
Patient-centered care can significantly improve the way a person is feeling both physically and mentally. The better they feel mentally and emotionally, the better they will feel physically also. Even if they won’t be cured of their illness, they can live out their remaining days with a sense of dignity, a greater feeling of contentment, and a little peace.
Americare Hospice and Palliative Care strives to provide the highest level of patient-focused care for those we serve in Mesa and the surrounding area. We are a Catholic hospice providers, but we serve patients of all faiths (and of none). We provide services for the patient and the entire family, including spiritual advising, individual and group counseling, and grief therapy. We’ll work with your family to determine the best care for your loved one and for the rest of the family. Call us in Mesa today to explore our options for in-home hospice care or care in other settings.
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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
