People that know they have arrived at the end of their worldly life may enter into a phase of stress or depression. The idea of leaving all of the life they have here can be terrifying. This is why giving them emotional and supportive conversations can be helpful for them. Comfort care is an important part of medical care at the end of life.

It is this care that helps those that are dying by soothing them immensely. The goals are ideally to relieve suffering as much as possible and also improve their quality of life. While you do so, make sure you are not disrespecting the wishes of the dying person.

A peaceful death may mean something a lot different to you than to somebody else. Someone you know may want to know when death is near so that they may have a few last words with people they love.

Some may want to die quickly and not stay on the death bed for long. Or someone else you know may want to stay at home when death arrives. In short, we all have different preferences of how death must happen to us. Though we mostly can’t choose but we do have our own wills and wishes.

So, what is the end-of-life care, and how can you offer help to hospice patients?

At the end of life, every story is different. Death comes just in a sudden, or a person lingers with gradually fading. For a few people, the body slowly weakens, but their mind stays alert. And other may stay physically strong, but the cognitive losses take a big toll. But everyone dies, and every loss is personally felt by people close to the one who died.

End-of-life care is a term used to describe the medical care and support given during the time near death. Such care doesn’t happen only in times before breathing ceases or the heart stops beating. Older people mostly live with many chronic illnesses and require many days of care that may last two months.

Being a caregiver for people that are at the end of life may be emotionally and physically exhausting. In the end, accept that there might be no perfect or ideal death; only the best you can do for those you love is possible. The pain of losing people close to you might be softened a bit because when they needed you, you did what was the best you could do.

How to comfort your loved one?

So, to comfort your loved one, you need to first understand that they are in a very emotional and draining period of their life. They need someone to talk to, they want all of their wishes to be granted, and they need help in everything, even the smallest tasks of life.

They also might want to have a word with people they love; hence everyone must be around them when they wish them to be. They should also get the right amount of attention and care they need. If they have some chores left to fulfill, you must offer your help to do all they need to do.