Conscious Departures

Hospice vs Palliative Care March 11, 2012

I realized after finishing the last post that I wasn’t clear about the differences between hospice care and palliative care. In looking for definitions I ended up at that wonderful site called the Caregivers Library, noted in the resource list. They have a very good section on this very subject called Hospice vs. Palliative Care. The section is not a showdown between the two but a thorough explanation as to what each one does, when, where and how. Here’s their general definition:

“The differences between hospice and palliative care.  

Hospice care and palliative care are very similar when it comes to the most important issue for dying people: care. Most people have heard of hospice care and have a general idea of what services hospice provides. What they don’t know or what may become confusing is that hospice provides “palliative care,” and that palliative care is both a method of administering “comfort” care and increasingly, an administered system of palliative care offered most prevalently by hospitals. As an adjunct or supplement to some of the more “traditional” care options, both hospice and palliative care protocols call for patients to receive a combined approach where medications, day-to-day care, equipment, bereavement counseling, and symptom treatment are administered through a single program. Where palliative care programs and hospice care programs differ greatly is in the care location, timing, payment, and eligibility for services.”

I recommend reading the entire section for further detail: Hospice vs. Palliative Care