They emphasize pain treatment and palliative care through an interdisciplinary team approach composed of nurses, social workers, physicians, dietitians, home health aides and highly trained volunteers. Hospices provide nursing care, medical equipment such as movable beds or walkers, drugs, social services, and physical therapy. Her program views the patient and his or her family as a unit that requires psychosocial and spiritual care. Arnella and her staff provide bereavement counseling for family members for a year after a loved one has died, to help not only with grief but the void that's left after someone has spent months caring for a spouse, a child, or a parent. Enrolling in Hospice P atients can enroll in a hospice program either through a physician referral, through family and friends, or by referring themselves.
Hospice care is available to anyone in the final stages of an illness.
Less than a third are at the end stage of heart disease, pulmonary disease, renal disease, or liver disease. Arnella says it would be extremely rare for a hospice to care for a patient on a respirator. We aren't trying to prolong life. We are trying to help people ease passage. Most hospices don't have large numbers of patients with chronic disease.