Los Angeles
Hospice Care

While hospice focuses on symptomatic comfort care, it doesn’t forget the emotional needs of the family. The shift from independent living to uncertain times, with eventual need for constant caregiving, finds stability and support through hospice care for the family. By providing comfort in both physical and emotional ways, perennial hospice assists the family in working through the dying process in a positive and healthy manner. Contact us today for your free in-home assessment.

Honoring the Will of the Individual: Personalization of Care

The process of hospice care is highly personal, and respect for an individual’s wishes usually represents one of the cornerstones. It can include decisions about where to spend their remaining days, at home or in a specialized facility, the way pain should be treated, and so on. Advanced care planning and open discussions of the end-of-life wishes become instrumental in this regard, helping to make sure that the care one receives indeed reflects values and desires.

Creating Meaningful Experiences

Even in hospice care, there can be times filled with meaningful experiences. Families are invited to spend time with their loved ones participating in activities that bring joy and comfort to the loved one-be it the playing of favorite music, the beauty of nature, or the reliving of fond memories. Such experiences add to the quality of life for the patient and contribute toward strengthening relationships and thereby creating new memories to be held by families.

Community Support: The Healing Power

The community that forms around a family during their hospice journey-from the hands-on healthcare providers to friends, extended family, and even strangers that feel a touch from similar experiences-provides a net of support that may be healing in and of itself. Ways this community can support these families on their journey of loss and adjustment include sharing stories, offering an ear to listen, and providing tangible assistance.

A New Dimension to the Meaning of Time

Hospice treatment gives a whole new dimension to the meaning of time, and that is, the value of time is to be sought not in quantity but in quality. Such a shift in understanding would allow both the patients and their family members to make full use of every other moment, to live fully in the present, and appreciate ordinary experiences. Thus, moments of contact, love, and genuine presence make time valuable.

It seems like a little misunderstanding with the word hospice is going on. It does not indicate attempting to cure one’s terminal illness; it is meant to make the rest of your life as comfortable as possible.

The goal of hospice is to comfort and support, not to cure the disease. So if you are still seeking a cure, hospice care may not be the right choice for you. But if you are seeking just a little peace and comfort, hospice care may be precisely what you need.

Pain Management

Pain control is certainly an important aspect of hospice care, as it allows patients to remain as comfortable as possible. Pain and other uncomfortable symptoms are managed by different medications and therapies to allow the quality of life to be maximized. There are never instances where families should not bring up the subject of pain control with the care team; comfort is always maintained for their loved ones.

The Importance of Multidisciplinary Teams

Hospice care is delivered through a multidisciplinary team of professionals who bring vast experience and devotion to their work. The composition typically includes doctors, nurses, social workers, therapists, counselors, and volunteers, with each participant in the team playing a very important role in the delivery of holistic care. Such collaboration among these professionals ensures that in all aspects, the needs of the patient and family are taken care of-medically, emotionally, spiritually, and practically.

Cultivate a space of healing conversations

Hospice creates that environment for healing conversations-things too painful or sensitive to discuss under other circumstances. Those conversations of forgiveness, dreams unfulfilled, and fears pertaining to the future are highly needed for the emotional mind to heal. Patients and families allow their hearts to open and create a flow that can bring peace and closure to be expressed authentically.

Learning to Trust the Journey

Trust in the care team, trust in the process, and trust in oneself, all are part of the hospice journey. That comes with open communication, compassionate care, and recognition of the dignity and worth of every person. Learning to trust the process allows one to move into the uncertainties of end-of-life care with peacefulness and assurance in the care that loved ones receive.