Considered to be the model for quality, compassionate care for people facing a life-limiting illness or injury, hospice care involves a team-oriented approach to expert medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support expressly tailored to the patient's needs and wishes.
Palliative care is patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and to facilitate patient autonomy, access to information and choice.
Advance care planning is making decisions about the care you would want to receive if you become unable to speak for yourself. These are your decisions to make, regardless of what you choose for your care, and the decisions are based on your personal values, preferences, and discussions with your loved ones .
Grief is the normal and natural emotional reaction to loss or change of any kind. Of itself, grief is neither a pathological condition nor a personality disorder.
Dying is a very natural part of living, but the culture in which we live has conditioned us to view death as an enemy to be reckoned with, a problem to be solved, a battle to be fought. Medicine provides life sustaining treatments. Yet, death is ultimately inescapable.
One out of every four dying Americans is a Veteran. Everyone deserves respectful, peaceful and dignified end-of-life care, most especially, those who have defended our freedoms. Our veterans represent a special population and it is important to understand their specific, unique needs.
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