The Carter Center has announced that former President Jimmy Carter, who is 98 years old, will be receiving hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia. Despite having faced a number of health challenges over the last decade, including brain cancer, liver surgery, and hip replacement surgery, Carter has remained resilient.
The decision to receive hospice care was made after a series of short hospital stays. The Carter family is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers and asks for privacy during this time.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospice care is not uncommon in the U.S., with 1.6 million patients receiving it in 2018. However, Dr. Sunita Puri, program director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, believes that hospice care is often misunderstood.
She argues that the dichotomy between medical intervention and hospice care is a false one, and that they are actually part of a continuum of care. Puri spoke with Yahoo News to help demystify hospice and end-of-life care, and provided insightful answers to some common questions.
What Hospice Care actually is
Dr. Sunita Puri defines hospice care as a form of intensive comfort-focused care that aims to alleviate physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering for patients and their families when someone has a life expectancy of six months or less. Hospice care can be given at home, in a nursing facility, or a standalone hospice facility. It is critical to understand that hospice care is a medical intervention that considers the entirety of a patient’s experience with a severe illness and the associated distress.
Who is Responsible for the Provision of Hospice Care
The provision of hospice care is usually the responsibility of specialized agencies. Typically, referring patients to these organizations is done by the primary medical team. These agencies are comprised of a diverse range of healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers. Depending on the individual patient’s needs, some hospice care providers may also include specialized therapists like physical, occupational, or music therapists.
What Hospice care Involves and How Long it Lasts
Hospice care involves a team of healthcare providers who offer intensive comfort-focused care to minimize physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering for patients and their families. Usually, hospice care is provided by agencies that employ various professionals, including doctors, nurses, social workers, spiritual care providers, music therapists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists, depending on the patient’s needs.
During hospice care, the nurse is usually the first member of the hospice team to visit the patient’s home. The nurse evaluates the patient’s condition, including pain, nausea, and shortness of breath, and discusses the emotional and spiritual aspects of the patient’s experience with the patient and their family. The physician oversees the entire plan of care, ensures the right medications are prescribed, and makes dosing changes as necessary.
The team works together to determine the individual needs and goals of patients and families, and hospice care is an iterative process that evolves as the patient’s condition worsens. Ultimately, hospice care aims to provide comprehensive medical care that considers the totality of a patient’s experience with serious illness and the suffering associated with it.
The duration of hospice care is based on a life expectancy of six months or less. However, in the U.S., the average hospice stay lasts only about three weeks. Dr. Sunita Puri suggests that this is unfortunate and indicative of our difficulty in discussing topics like quality of life, suffering, and whether treatments are actually benefiting patients. These conversations are often delayed, resulting in patients being referred to hospice very late. Dr. Puri finds the statistic interesting yet not surprising.
What is Important about Hospice Care
Hospice care is not about admitting defeat or giving up on life, but rather it’s about acknowledging the reality of the situation and focusing on quality of life. It’s a holistic approach that aims to minimize suffering and maximize dignity for patients and their families as they face serious illnesses that cannot be cured. Therefore, it’s crucial to start discussing the transition from life-prolonging treatments to hospice care early on after a serious diagnosis is given.
Hospice care is centered on the needs of the patient and their loved ones, taking into account their individual values, goals, and preferences. It’s a comprehensive and compassionate plan of care that addresses physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, with a team of healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers, among others. By focusing on the patient’s comfort and well-being, hospice care honors the person beyond their illness.