With Former President Jimmy Carter’s time in Hospice Care being in the national news, a common question is, “Does the average family understand what Hospice Care is? OSF Hospice Nurse Emma Winslow did some explaining for us.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: For Hospice, people come to us whenever they have a prognosis of six months or less, and they’re willing to focus more on comfort measures. So we would really encourage people, when they’re no longer willing to seek active treatment, and they want to focus more on quality of life; that’s when our services would come into place.
Winslow says sometime people confuse Hospice Care with Palliative Care. But while both are meant to comfort, Palliative Care starts at the beginning of a diagnosis.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: Palliative Care; it begins at the time of a diagnosis of a serious illness; like heart failure, cancer. But those patients are typically still seeking active treatment to manage their disease process and their symptoms. Where with Hospice, we come into play whenever patients and families decide to stop treatment. Our goal is to focus more on symptom management, like pain.
For more information about OSF Hospice Care, call 217-355-4120, or go to https://www.osfhealthcare.org/services/hospice/
