When the goal of treatment begins to shift from recovering from or curing an illness to providing comfort, it is time to consider hospice.
Have you or your loved one...
• Been hospitalized or gone to the emergency room several times in the past six months?
• Been making more frequent phone calls to your physician?
• Started taking medication to lessen physical pain?
• Started spending most of the day in a chair or bed?
• Fallen several times over the past six months?
• Started needing help from others with:
Bathing
Dressing
Walking
Eating
Getting out of Bed
Personal Care
• Started consistently feeling weaker or more tired?
• Experienced unexplained weight loss so that clothes are noticeably looser?
• Noticed a shortness of breath, even while resting?
• Been told by a doctor that life expectancy is limited?
If you answered "yes" to a number of the questions above, it may be time to consider Hospice care.
Most of us would choose to spend the end of a life journey with loved ones in the comfort and familiarity of our own homes. For some, this may not be possible. A hospice residence might be appropriate for individuals who are unable or prefer not to receive hospice care in their own home. These individuals may live alone or have a spouse who is too ill or frail to provide the care they require; there is no caregiver, or the caregiver has become too weary and fatigued to continue providing care. They may have adult children who live many miles away or are unable to provide the twenty-four hour care their parent needs. Parents with young families may choose residential hospice care to avoid the anxiety for their children that may be precipitated by end of life care at home. Others choose this type of care because they simply prefer a more structured surrounding, or to not burden their family.
Many times a person is at home and a Hospice team is providing care through visits throughout the week, and family provides the supportive twenty-four care that is needed. At times this condition creates a hardship physically and or emotionally for a family or family member. Sometimes families want to spend more "quality time" visiting and comforting their loved one, versus providing the "hands-on" care; they prefer to not be the caregiver . This time can be the most important time to be a wife, husband, daughter, son or friend, as it is a time to reminisce, hold, laugh and love. This is when the Ichabod Washburn Hospice Residence can assist a patient and their loved ones. The Ichabod Washburn Hospice Residence can provide both the staff and the support needed, by becoming the caregiver, so that family members preserve that "quality time" to spend with their loved one at the end of life's journey.
