This organization provides a holistic approach to pain management, through emotional and spiritual care as much as physical. It provides a soft, warm atmosphere in which the patient can spend his/her final days. And it can even bring that atmosphere to the patient's home or long-term care facility. (In fact, some long-term care facilities have their own hospice programs.) There's no attempt at a cure. Instead, there's a focus on pain-relief... and at affording the patient the chance to die with dignity.
When your loved one's physician determines that he/she has six months or less to live, he may call in hospice. At this point, the "cure" protocol stops. The hospice team (generally consisting of a chaplain, certified nursing assistants, a doctor, registered nurse, and social worker) then creates a palliative care plan, coordinating with the personal physician on an ongoing basis.
The services of many hospice agencies continue even beyond death, with grief counseling on both individual and group levels. At the end of this counseling, many participants are ready to start "living" again.
If you'd like your loved one to die with dignity - and to leave the decision up to her instead of doctors - then you should consider hospice when the time comes.
This will certainly be one of the most difficult times of your life. But you don't have to go through it alone. At The Law Offices of Alice Reiter Feld & Associates, we have the resources to show you the way. We can help you when your loved one reaches the end-of-life stage - just as we can help you long before that, with estate planning, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, asset protection, long-term care planning, and issues with the VA or Medicaid. Over the past 33 years, we've helped thousands of South Florida families navigate the "Elder Care Maze." And we've done it with professionalism, compassion, and, when necessary, a soft shoulder.
You don't have to navigate the Elder Care Maze alone. We're just a phone call away.
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