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Where Do The Dying Turn To For Help?

Individuals are at all stages of life when it is their turn to die. Some individuals are very young and others are very old. Many are wealthy and still many more die poor. Some go through the dying process with sound mind and spirit and others are in comas or die instantly. Where does one turn when they are in need of help in order to cope with that last stage of life, we call dying?

There are two basic types of help available to those in need of assistance during the dying process. Palliative care is the type of care involving medical treatment that is focused on making the individual comfortable by reducing the severity of the symptoms he/she experiences with the disease they are dying from or if possible to slow the progress of the disease. This type of care recognizes that there is not going to be a cure. Palliative care is delivered during any point of illness and extended for as long a time as needed. The second type of care is perhaps the most recognized and that is hospice care. In the United States hospice care is a very specific form of palliative care that is limited to the last six months of life (estimated by a doctor's diagnosis).

Palliative care is usually delivered in medical facility such as a nursing home, or hospital and hospice care is a 24 hours a day service offered in the individual's home, a hospital, nursing home or a hospice care facility.

The focus of hospice care is to inform the patient and the family members about the medical care needed, pain management methods, emotional support and spiritual counseling is given to the dying individual as well as to the family members supporting the dying individual. Counseling is made available that can help all involved deal with the grief stages, and dying process so that family caregivers, and those in bereavement can understand all of the support options that are available through the hospice as well as through the community. Hospice teams are available no matter where the patient is receiving the hospice care. These teams typically consist of medical doctors and nurses, other medical staff, social workers, psychologists, trained volunteers, and also spiritual advisors.

The cost of hospice care is usually covered by private medical insurance and Medicare will generally pay for these services after a doctor has made the diagnosis and death is placed at 6 months or less. If the services of a hospice are not covered by insurance, the typical costs out of pocket are usually several hundred dollars.

Choosing palliative care or hospice care should never be about giving up, it should be about choosing help for an individual in the last stage of life and seeing to it that they are being given every chance to experience this stage in as much comfort as possible with the kind of emotional and spiritual support that he/she and the family members deserve.