Unfortunately, when looking for hospice care, there are a lot of choices you need to make. Unless the person who is ill made arrangements ahead of time, you will be faced with decisions regarding their last moments on this earth. While it is an emotional time, there are business decisions that need to be made in order to keep your loved one as comfortable as possible. There are seniors nursing homes in South Jersey that will help you every step of the way in hospice care.
Hospice care involves everyone from the patient and immediate family to volunteers, physicians, therapists, nurses, social workers, spiritual counselors, home health aides, and bereavement counselors to make the last days as comfortable for everyone as possible. The services provided by hospice rely on helping the people involved, ease into the next step of life. These services are not focused on curing the patient.
Once referred to hospice, the length of care for a patient can vary. Since 2011, over 1.5 million people have had help from hospice. Hospice care, when conducted in seniors nursing homes in South Jersey, concentrate on caring for the patient 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The hospice team meets regularly to discuss pain management and symptom control. There is a small percentage that leave hospice care for remission of symptoms.
Interestingly enough, the statistics of people that receive hospice senior care in NJ weigh heavily in support of one particular part of society. 83% of hospice patients are made up of women over the age of 65. One third of the patients in hospice care are over the age of 85. Cancer patients are the biggest percentage of hospice care recipients. 37% of the patients are suffering from cancer while the remaining 63% are from a variety of life threatening illnesses.
Overall, the services offered through hospice care are there to take care of the emotional, psychological, spiritual concerns as well as manage pain and symptoms. Along the way, final details must be adhered to and the hospice care services manage all of these items. Short term, long term and bereavement counseling are under the auspices of hospice care.
