What is Hospice Care

Hospice & Palliative Care

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Hospice is a specialized, team-based approach to support and care for individuals with life-limiting or advanced illness and their families. When curative care is no longer an option, hospice focuses on meeting the physical and emotional needs at the end of life, so that families can focus on what is important.

The goals of hospice care are to ensure comfort, enhance quality of life, and preserve dignity and choice.

What’s the difference between hospice and palliative care?

Both hospice and palliative care focus on treating symptoms (such as anxiety, nausea, pain, or difficulty sleeping) and enhancing your quality of life.

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 For more information contact La Diferencia Hospice at (210) 395-3395

Hospice Care

Hospice care is appropriate when a physician feels that a patient’s life expectancy may be six months or less. When curative care is no longer an option, hospice focuses on providing physical comfort and emotional support so that life can be lived as fully as possible.

Palliative Care

Palliative care is appropriate at any stage of an illness and can be part of a care plan that includes treatment of a disease.

When should hospice be considered? We recognize that it can be difficult to think about hospice. If you are coping with the pressures of a serious or potentially terminal illness, you don’t have to go through it alone. Talking about hospice, or discussing care options early as possible allows you and your loved ones more time to focus on what is important to you. Hospice care may be appropriate when:
  • Your symptoms are becoming hard to manage
  • You are spending more time in the hospital
  • Your main priority is comfort and relief from pain or other symptoms
  • Curative care is no longer an option
  • You are diagnosed with a condition such as heart failure, COPD, end-stage renal disease, dementia, cancer, or stroke and your illness is life-limiting