Hospice Care

Hospice care is an outpatient service by a licensed provider trained to ease the pain of the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual discomfort of one in the last phases of life because of terminal illness. They also provide supportive care to the primary caregiver and family. Such care may be provided by a skilled or unskilled person under a Plan of Care.

Hospice care is usually given in the patients home, but may also be provided in a freestanding independent facility, a hospital-based unit, an assisted-living facility, or a nursing home. One primary myth of hospice care is it focuses on curing a patient, when the truth is, it focuses on people of all ages who are no longer actively seeking a medical cure. Hospice provides grief support to the family after the death of the loved one, if they so desire. (1)

Source:
1. McConnell, E. About Hospice. Nursing. 2000, November.