“Hospice hastens death” or “Hospice rushes death”.
This myth could not be farther from the truth! While the main purpose of hospice care is neither to prolong life nor hasten death, it does greatly improve quality of life. Studies have shown that hospice care can increase patients’ survival for certain diagnoses, when began early enough in the disease process. This means that when the patient receives optimal symptom management early enough to improve quality of life, this can also increase their quantity of life. Some studies that prove this can be found here and here.
Hospice care encompasses palliative care, which the CMS webpage defines as “patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness involves addressing, physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and to facilitate patient autonomy, access to information, and choice.” Traditional healthcare treats the illness, rather than the patient. When traditional healthcare can no longer treat an illness and the provider and/or patient decide nothing more can be done, it is time to begin treating the person and improving his/her quality of life.
Having your physical, psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual care properly managed allows the patient to live their best life for however long he/she has. Oh, and did you know not every hospice patient passes away?? Some patients improve so much they actually don’t qualify for hospice care anymore and get discharged. And for cancer patients, you can even refer to hospice care to manage the side effects of chemotherapy, once completed. Having all types of pain properly managed can help the patient regain strength in order to discharge from hospice care and seek more aggressive treatments.
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with a serious illness and would like symptom management, please call St. Anthony’s Hospice or Palliative Care at (270) 826-2326 or make an online referral.
