If your loved one is slowly reaching the end of their life, you need to make sure that they get the care they need and deserve. You want to ensure that your loved one is happy, relaxed, and stress-free during their final days and weeks alive. Instead of worrying about transporting them to and from the hospital, giving up your busy life to spend 24 hours a day with them, and needing to learn how to take care of them and administer medication, you can use professional hospice care to help put your mind at ease.

Using a hospice care service ensures that professionals who are well-versed in taking care of elderly and sick patients can attend to your loved one. This way, you don’t have to worry about the type of care they will receive – you can rest assured they are receiving the top-of-the-line care that will help them relax and remain calm during their last weeks. Let’s see a few of the most common services that you can choose from when you sign up for hospice care for your loved one.

The 3 most common hospice services for your loved one

Let’s answer a question first before introducing the specific types of hospice services that you will need to learn more about before using with your loved one.

When should I sign up for hospice services?

The first question that people usually have about signing up their loved ones for hospice services is when they should sign up for the services. Usually, a loved one will need hospice services when they are terminally ill and their projected life expectancy is less than 6 months in the future. This way, you can ensure that your loved one gets professional care during their last weeks or months alive.

But how do you choose what types of hospice services your loved one needs? Typically, there are checklists and ways that you can determine the level of care your loved one needs. Some people may need less attention than others, whereas other elderly patients or those on end-of-life care will need 24/7 support, medication administration, feeding, and other daily help.

You can usually figure out the types of hospice services your loved one needs by finding the answers to the following:

• How sick is the loved one that you are caring for and how do they feel daily? If you find that your loved one is always very sick, nauseous, and not able to do anything for themselves, they will typically need around-the-clock care.
• Can the pain of your loved one be managed away from a medical care setting and a hospital? If so, you can use hospice care from your own home to help them relax in a comfortable environment.
• Who is the main caregiver of your love? If it is you, ask yourself if you can deal with the stress of having to be physically and emotionally supporting your loved one. If you are constantly doing other things, like working, taking care of your own children, or going to school, you may need to hire hospice care to help your loved one.
• Do you have the accessories and the medical equipment needed to take care of your loved one? If the answer is “don’t”, it could be better to hire hospice services as you can ensure that your loved one has everything they need.

3 types of hospice services and care

There are typically a few different types of hospice services that you can choose from for your loved one. Different levels of care can help your loved ones remain comfortable during their final days at home. Let’s see the three most common services and use for your loved one in hospice care:

• Routine home care – the most popular type of hospice care involves routine home care. This is where the loved one is cared for in their own home so they do not have to go to a hospital or a rehab facility. This allows the patient to be comfortable while they are at home and allows the hospice care workers to come to a house to provide daily nursing services.
• Continuous home care – if your loved one is very ill and they cannot do anything for themselves, then you may need to look into continuous home care hospice services.
• General inpatient care – this is solely for short-term care when your loved one will need to be admitted to a hospital setting if they can’t deal with the pain or severe illness from their own home.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are typically three levels of hospice services that you can choose when it comes to caring for your loved one. You can choose from home care, which is the best and most relaxing option for your loved one, or inpatient care. Inpatient care is typically a short-term solution for those who are going through higher levels of pain and need immediate respite.