Hospice vs. Palliative Care: What’s the Difference?
Understanding which option is best for your loved one
Are you or one of your loved ones living with a serious illness, such as cancer, heart failure, or Parkinson’s disease? Are you uncertain which care options might be the most beneficial? At Valir Health, we can help you navigate these often-difficult decisions, including helping you to understand the differences between hospice vs. palliative care.
Hospice and palliative care are often discussed side by side. While there is some overlap, namely in overall philosophy and the types of conditions they can help, there are also some crucial distinctions. The largest has to do with the intention of care.
Palliative focuses on providing relief and comfort from the symptoms and stress of living with a serious illness. It looks at the whole person, not just their condition, and it’s usually administered alongside other treatments for the illness, such as chemotherapy.
Hospice care, in contrast, is designed for people at the end of their life or who wish to discontinue treatment of their condition. Like palliative care, it focuses on making patients’ lives more comfortable. However, patients in hospice will no longer receive treatment for their illness, and most hospice patients will pass away within six months of entering care.
Because palliative care strives to improve your overall experience of receiving treatment for an illness, deciding to begin care is usually an easy decision. Choosing to enter hospice, however, is often much more difficult.
Valir Health offers both hospice vs. palliative care services to the Oklahoma community. Request an appointment to talk with one of our experts about options for you or your loved one.
What to expect from palliative care services
Living with a serious illness profoundly impacts your overall life–and it’s not always because of the illness itself, either. You have to manage symptoms from the condition, side effects from the treatment, and the stress of both. Palliative care helps you find relief from all the difficulties of serious illness.
Your exact experience with palliative care will vary depending on the nature of your illness. For example, someone with cancer will likely seek relief from the often-devastating side effects of chemotherapy. In contrast, someone with congestive heart failure might seek lymphatic drainage to help with leg swelling.
However, because palliative care’s goal is to provide relief beyond just treating your illness itself, it offers several benefits regardless of your condition. Here are a few of the ways your multi-disciplinary palliative care team might do that:
- Alleviate symptoms, both from the illness and treatment side effects
- Educate you on what to expect from treatment
- Help you navigate the complexities of the health care system
- Facilitate counseling sessions for you and your family
- Offer spiritual support
- May help you live longer
Palliative care is available to anyone with a serious illness, regardless of age, illness progression, or prognosis. While many associate it with cancer patients, it has become more widespread in recent years, offering medical, mental, and spiritual support to people with conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, and many others.
What to expect from hospice care services
The reality of living with a serious illness is that there may come a time when treatment is no longer effective. Perhaps the illness has progressed too much, or perhaps the patient has decided they no longer wish to live with the treatment’s debilitating side effects. This is the situation in which someone might choose to enter hospice care.
Like palliative care, hospice care sees patients as more than just their illness. It consists of a multi-disciplinary team focused on providing medical, emotional, and spiritual care, and it seeks to provide comfort and improve quality of life.
Unlike palliative care, however, all treatment for the illness ceases upon entering hospice. While patients will still receive treatment for other conditions or symptoms (such as pain or high blood pressure), their medical team will no longer treat their major illness. Instead, hospice focuses on ensuring the last few months of the patient’s life are as comfortable as possible.
Here are just some of the ways that hospice care helps patients and their families:
- Alleviate pain, discomfort, or other symptoms
- Assist with bathing, grooming, or other personal care tasks
- Provide companionship to patients
- Offer counseling and spiritual support to both patients and their loved ones
- Help relieve the burden on caregivers
- Provide bereavement support to help loved ones more easily navigate the mourning period
Hospice care is available to anyone of any age with a serious illness who has a limited time to live (usually six months or less). It’s also available to patients who choose to stop life-saving treatment.
Schedule an appointment to learn more
At Valir Health, we understand that navigating a serious illness can be difficult. Our compassionate team is here to answer any questions you have about palliative or hospice care, and we can provide guidance to help you decide which option is right for you or your loved one.
Request an appointment at our Oklahoma location today.