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Hospice: It's Not A Place...It's A Way of Caring!
Hospice care:
· Focuses on comfort and dignity.
· Keeps families together during
the difficult time of losing a
loved one.
· Gives people control over their
end-of-live care.
· Tends to save money. (It usually
costs less for people to receive
hospice care than for them to
be in a hospital.)
Inside this issue:
The History of Hospice
2
Who Receives Hospice?
3
Hospice vs. Hospital Care 4
The Hospice Team
5
Why Not Hospice?
6
Palliative Care
7
Hospice Care Tips
8-9
The Inservice Club for Nursing Assistants
IN THE KNOW
It’s true. Hospice is not a location.
It’s a special way of caring for
terminally ill clients and their
families. In the old days, a hospice
was a guesthouse available to tired
or sick travelers who needed to rest
during a long journey. Today, the
idea of hospice is to offer
compassionate care to people who
are nearing the end of their life
journey.
Throughout a person’s life, the
focus of most medical care is on
disease. For example, Mr. Smith
goes to the hospital because he has
a high fever and trouble breathing.
The medical team tries to figure out
which disease is causing Mr. Smith’s
problems. Once they figure it out,
the team works to make the disease
go away. That’s the goal. Get rid of
the disease and send the patient on
his way.
Hospice care is different. The focus
of hospice is the client and
family—not the disease. Hospice
care is provided by a team of
people who have chosen hospice as
their specialty and who have been
specifically trained to work with
dying clients. But, that doesn’t
mean that hospice is all about grief
and sadness! The main goal of
hospice is to help clients live
meaningful lives—with comfort and
dignity—for the time that’s left
them.
The hospice team includes nursing
assistants (usually called home
health aides or hospice aides). In
fact, aides are very important to the
team, especially since they spend so
much time with clients and their
families. So, whether you already
work in hospice or you’re just
interested in knowing more about
it, keep reading to review the basics
about hospice care in America.
“Hospice” comes from a Latin word
that means “guesthouse”.
Understanding
Hospice
A Health Care Module:
