
End-of-life care patients and their family members often find it difficult to understand the terms hospice and palliative care. Usually both of these terms are misunderstood and due to some constraints such as language barrier, the actual meaning of these two terms is lost in translation. The patient and his family members consider hospice and home health care and palliative care is one thing while in actual the services being provided to such patients are totally something different.
At time it becomes difficult for even the most credible translating services such as Google to convey true meaning of the services that are meant to be provided to the end-of-life care patients such as Medicaid and home health care. For example, if the terms hospice and palliative care are translated through Google translate service into the Chinese care then these two terms literally mean last minute care and do nothing care respectively. The problem which arises from this incorrect translation often keeps the end of life patients away from the very necessary medical, emotional, and spiritual aid. These things if provided to such patients can significantly improve the quality of their end life no matter how short or prolonged it may be.
When a patient is diagnosed with a condition which estimates their life time to be six months or less than that then hospice such as River Valley become all the more important to such patients. The professionals at hospice then make it their utmost duty to ensure that the end of life days of patients are made trouble free, comfortable and satisfying to the maximum extent. Rather than the eventual demise of the patient, hospice professionals are really focused on the life that they have left for them and how to make them live it in the best possible way. Hospice ensures that the environment becomes a home to them so that they feel comfortable synonymous to the comfort they used to get at home. The hospice team becomes a family to them as well.
Rather than considering it the end of time period, hospice is really there to ensure that the end of life patients get the most out of their life in the last days.
Similar to the hospice, palliative care does not mean that there is nothing left to do. Actually there is more to do in palliative care for end of life patients than any other patient and following will explain how.
Although palliative care and hospice are somewhat similar in terms of the time period they become relevant i.e. the end of life stage. But the palliative care professionals ensure that the Medicaid is properly provided to such patients so that despite suffering from chronic diseases, patients are made as comfortable as possible.
Most part of palliative care surrounds around the patient and treating the symptoms that they may experience from time to time. Pain management is also a major part of palliative care in which multiple regimens are used in order to bring down the pain to a minimum even if it is not to get rid of it.
