How Does Hospice Care Support A Patient’s Final Wishes?
When someone is nearing the end of their life, they start thinking about how they want to spend their last days. At Star City Hospice, we offer care and resources to fulfill as many of our patients’ last wishes as we can.
Our hospice care services start with a conversation. We’ll sit down with you and your loved one to learn more about your situation and talk about what matters most to you. Some people want a lot of quiet time at home. Others want to be alert and spend as much time as possible with their friends and family. Some patients want to resolve conflicts with people they haven’t seen in a long time. And others want to spend a lot of time with a pastor before they pass. Our team takes the time to understand your loved one’s goals, and we use them to shape your care. In this blog, we’ll explain how our hospice teams can support your loved one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual last wishes. Let’s start by talking about physical wishes:
How Hospice Care Supports Physical Wishes
A common wish that most hospice patients have is to be comfortable during their final days. If your loved one has an advanced illness, they may be in pain or be tired all the time. They might have trouble breathing. Our caregivers adjust your family member’s medications and therapies to manage these symptoms. Our goal is to ease pain while keeping your loved one as alert as they want to be. Another common physical wish patients have is to be able to live where they want during their final days. Most patients want to be at home, but we also offer general inpatient care. Our hospice teams meet you where your loved one wants to be, and we provide all the equipment, medication, and home visits needed to keep your family member comfortable. Finally, we also support your loved one’s wishes related to their daily routines. We understand patients will want to bathe and eat at specific times. Our caregivers can help make your family member’s favorite meals and offer complementary therapies like massages or aromatherapy. We help keep your patient’s house as clean and comfortable as possible. Supporting physical wishes is more than just providing medical care. We do everything we can to make your family member’s physical environment as comfortable as possible. Whether it’s pain relief, meeting your loved one where they want to be, or creating a comfortable environment, we do everything we can to support your patient’s physical wishes.
How Hospice Care Supports Emotional Wishes
Hospice care also addresses emotional wishes. When someone is nearing the end of their life, they may feel many complex emotions. Your loved one might be feeling fear, sadness, grief, gratitude, regret, and everything in between. Our hospice team supports your family member emotionally in several ways. The simplest way we support emotional needs is by offering companionship. Our caregivers sit and talk with your family member when you can’t be there. We give our patients someone to talk with, laugh with, or just sit quietly with. We feel it’s important to create space for patients to express themselves freely at the end of their life. Many patients also have final wishes related to closure. They may want to say goodbye to people they haven’t seen for a long time or mend a strained relationship. Our hospice team does everything we can to facilitate these conversations. We can also help your loved one write letters and directives, record life stories, or create scrapbooks to gift to their friends and family. Star City Hospice also supports your entire family’s emotional needs. We offer counseling services to help your family talk through this emotional time. Our team also offers respite care services to give your family short breaks from caring for your loved one in hospice.
How Hospice Care Supports Spiritual Wishes
Hospice care can also support patients spiritually. At Star City Hospice, we understand spirituality takes many forms. Spiritual wishes at the end of someone’s life can be related to their religion, cultural traditions, personal rituals, or just a connection to nature and family.
One of the most common spiritual wishes we can support is receiving comfort from a faith community. We can facilitate meetings with your loved one’s pastor or other clergy members. We also have hospice chaplains if your family member doesn’t have a spiritual leader in their life. Spiritual support is also available for our patients’ families.
Our hospice teams also support the spiritual wishes of people who aren’t religious. We can help patients meditate, reflect on their life, express regrets, or talk through other issues. Our goal is to make our patients feel more at peace. Some patients wish to honor cultural traditions, whether it’s a blessing, ceremony, or ritual when they pass. We do our best to help our patients carry out these customs.
Contact Star City Hospice Today
Hospice Care Services in Dallas, Texas
Hospice care is about more than medical healthcare. It’s about making sure your loved one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual wishes are met so that they can live their final days in dignity and comfort. We feel all three of these types of wishes should be fulfilled during hospice care.
When their physical wishes are met, patients can focus on spending time with their loved ones. When their emotional wishes are heard, patients feel less alone and more loved and connected. When their spiritual wishes are respected, patients are more likely to feel at peace when their time comes.
Contact us today if you need a hospice care provider in the Dallas area for someone close to you. Our team is happy to answer your questions and walk you through how we can support your loved one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual wishes at the end of their life.