What is hospice?

Hospice is about living, about giving people access to what they need so they will have the best possible quality of life during a difficult time. Patients who choose hospice have made the decision--along with their doctor and family--to change cure goals to comfort goals. That is, they are opting for palliative, or comfort, care. Therefore, the main medical intervention is symptom management, including pain control. Because pain can be experienced on many levels--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual- the hospice team may intervene in any of these areas.

Many people mistakenly associate hospice only with sorrow. However, most hospice experiences include times of joy and peace and heartwarming closeness. People often comment that hospice experiences, although involving a death, give them a deeper understanding of life.

Choosing hospice care for oneself or a loved one can be a difficult decision. Patients and their families may have spent months or years concentrating on curative care designed to halt the disease process, opting for chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation therapy. Hospice becomes appropriate when the focus on curing is no longer supporting quality of life. Whether they come to this decision on their own, or their doctor has encouraged them to consider it, patients have decided they do not want to spend any more of the time they have left seeking aggressive curative care.