Reply to What were the benefits of going on hospice?

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "What were the benefits of going on hospice?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]If you aren’t in agreement I would not do it. We did and ended up enrolling, disenrolling, and enrolling again because we were not ready to say no to treatment (in this case, IV antibiotics that had to be administered in a rehab facility). But you can go on and off hospice — it’s not a big deal. The hospice will go through all medications and remove any that are not for comfort. You can pay out of pocket or try to argue but the doctor will have to approve. You can have all these discussions with them and choose not to enroll. They want to make sure you know what you’re getting into if they are a good hospice.

Anyway, it got to the point for us where the treatments were torture themselves. This situation is a little different because my loved one was in memory care with late stage dementia. Each hospital visit was torture because they are disorienting and dementia patients just get sedated with Haldol and not really taken care of well. And the hospital visits were getting more frequent because pain wasn’t being managed (this was an expensive memory care).

Once on hospice, memory care had to call hospice first, not just send to the hospital (which they tend to do when they don’t know what is going on). Then hospice would send a nurse at all hours to assess and decide what was best.

It was also impossible to get pain medications stronger than Tylenol and adequate any anxiety medications through memory care. They are very hesitant because  chemical restraints since they are against licensing. Hospice enrollment provided that as well as extra bathing, nursing visits, oversight, a plan for death, strong medications, 24/7 support, a social worker, all supplies diapers and oxygen, skilled nursing support, and more.

There comes a point where you know your loved one is dying. You can’t cure them. You just want them to be calm and not in pain. To have a peaceful passing. You want a plan for death and have support through it for yourself and your loved one. Living is torture. You know the disease progression. You know what’s coming and quality of life is zero. That’s when you opt for hospice. So definitely think about whether your loved is at that stage or not. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics