During November the home care and hospice community honor the millions of nurses, home care aides, therapists, and social workers who make a remarkable difference for the patients and families they serve. This year's theme is Hospice.Helps.Everyone. and hospices across the country are reaching out to raise awareness about the highest quality care for all people coping with life-limiting illness.
Every year, nearly 1.6 million people living with a life-limiting illness receive care from hospice and palliative care providers in this country, as reported by J. Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Hospice is not a place. Hospice and palliative care programs provide pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care to patients and their families when a cure is not possible and in many different settings. Hospice and palliative care empower people facing a serious or life-limiting illness to live as fully as possible, surrounded and supported by family and loved ones. These efforts allow patients to live as fully as possible and enjoy meaningful moments until the end, surrounded and supported by the faces of family, friends, and committed caregivers.
Hospice and palliative care combine the highest level of quality medical care with the emotional and spiritual support that families need most when facing the end of life. Hospice helps focus on living despite a terminal diagnosis.
In celebrating National Hospice Month we hope to educate and encourage citizens to increase their understanding and awareness of care at the end of life and to observe this month with us.
More information about hospice, palliative care, and advance care planning is available from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization at
http://www.nhpco.org, and stories showing the many ways hospice makes more special moments possible can be found at
www.momentsoflife.org.
