The Difference Between Hospice and Palliative Care

Those that have had family members falls ill have more than likely been informed of the care options that are out there for that person in order to make sure that they receive the help that they may need in order to live a full life. Usually there are two types of care that people are hearing about and this is the hospice care and the palliative care. However, though they may both provide care or an individual, the ways and reasons as to which care the person is offered is very different, and when deciding on what type of care that a loved one needs, the person must know the difference in order to choose correctly.

Hospice care is when a group or a few nurses come to the home where the loved one is staying. The person is usually beyond helping and curing of their problem, and the nurses are there just to make sure that they are completely comfortable. Those that take this option usually want the loved at home until their last days so that they can feel the love of the family and not have to worry about being in a hospital. Hospice is also there for the loved ones that are taking care of the patient. They are there to help with the depression and deal with the dying process. For example, they many times help the family to accept that the person is dying and help them to deal with unsaid things and so forth. They are the rock that the family can lean on should they have problems accepting the death of a loved one, which can be very heard to do. These nurses usually come into the home a few days out of the week or everyday, it really depends on the condition of the patient and what kind of car they need in order to feel comfortable in their own home.

Those that opt for palliative care are going to have to confine their loved one to a hospital or nursing home. The main difference between this type of care and the hospice care is that the person is going to have twenty four hour monitoring while at these facilities. This is usually available for those that have illnesses or problems that they can recover from should they have the right care, or for those that are physically unable to care for themselves, such as suffering from a stroke. The health insurance of someone will pay for palliative care, as long as the person has prior acknowledgement from a doctor that they do indeed need this type of care. This does help to take some of the burden of care off of the family since there are others that are going to do this for them.

Overall, when a loved one falls ill, depending on the seriousness of their issues, they will more than likely be offered one of these care methods to help them through the illness or to simply make them more comfortable for the weeks up until their death. For more information, visit lewiscountyhospice.org.