When your loved one is struggling with heart disease, you might be thinking “Is it time for hospice care?” The first thing you need to know about hospice care is that contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t prolong or shorten life, or cure an illness, but focuses of providing comfort and care. Hospice care aids patients in deciding complex issues related to chronic or prolonged illnesses such as medical care, living arrangements, and financial concerns.
It’s likewise developed to offer patients and families emotional support and educate caregivers on how to better provide proper care, adds a well-known hospice care home services provider in Indiana. Hospice is typically for patients who are expected to live for less than six months. With heart disease however, it could be hard to determine when is the right time for hospice care.
Is It Time for Hospice Care?
To answer this question, watch out for signs that could indicate that your loved one would benefit from hospice care:
- Even at rest, your loved one experiences significant symptoms.
- Your loved one has advanced coronary disease or heart failure with regular angina episodes. Angina is basically chest pain due to inadequate oxygen and blood supply to the heart.
- Your loved one has an abnormal heart because of his heart condition and suffers regularly from fatigue, functional decline, or shortness of breath.
- Your loved one has other health problems such as lung disease or kidney disease.
- The heart medication of your loved one can’t seem to manage his symptoms anymore.
- Your loved one has already undergone optimal treatment and are not eligible for further medical or surgical intervention.
- Your loved one has already chosen to stop treatment and prefers comfort care rather than more treatments.
How Your Loved One Could Benefit from Hospice Care
Your chosen hospice care provider would assess the status of your loved one and update his care plan as his condition and symptoms progresses. Their primary goal is to ease your loved one’s physical and emotional symptoms in order that he could live out his remaining life with as much dignity and comfort for as long as possible. As experienced advanced heart care professionals, the hospice care team would focus on your loved one’s care plan to give him the most personalized care possible, which includes the following features:
- Keeping track and managing your loved one’s symptoms.
- Regular contact with your loved one’s cardiologist for early intervention and stabilization of worsening symptoms.
- All medications and medical equipment required to effectively manage your loved one’s heart condition.
- Services used to mitigate severe symptoms and prevent re-hospitalization.
- For you, a hospice care team could also provide caregiver education and support, nursing assistance, emotional assistance, respite care, as well as bereavement services.
Hospice care could be offered at home, in an assisted living facility, a hospice care center, or nursing home. Keep in mind also that while only a doctor could make a determination of your loved one’s life expectancy, the earlier you start conversations regarding treatment and care, the higher the chance that your loved one’s quality of life could be improved.
