Wrapping your head around moving a loved one into hospice care can take some time, and this goes double for explaining hospice care to kids. When you’re explaining hospice care to your child here are a few things to keep in mind.

Just Start Talking- One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is often starting the conversation. It’s easy to keep waiting for the “right time”, but the reality is there will never be the perfect moment. Once you start the conversation, try to get to the point as soon as possible. Kids don’t have long attention spans, so try to not waste time beating around the bush. It’s also a good idea to use small words and avoid using complicated medical terms.

Defining Hospice- When explaining why you’re moving grandma or grandpa from the hospital into palliative or hospice care, the main points you need to communicate is how this will help the sick family member. Let your child know that this will make them much more comfortable and increase their quality of life.

Check For Misunderstanding- After you finish talking, ask if they have any questions about what’s happening. You might need to ask this in a few different ways to make sure they fully understand everything that’s happening. While you’re checking for questions, take time to reiterate that it’s okay to be sad and upset about this. Let them know you’re sad too and they can talk with you about what they’re feeling.

Watch for Cues- Finally, in the coming days watch out for certain cues that will show how well your child is dealing with everything. If they exhibit loss of appetite, mood swings, or loss of interest in things that use to excite them, it might be time for a follow up talk.

Explaining hospice care to kids isn’t something any parent is ever ready to do, but with these steps any parent can handle it. At CURA-HPC we want to be a resource to you and your family as you go through this difficult time. Our staff is highly skilled in taking care of both the medical and emotional aspects of end of life care.  

The first holiday while grieving for a loved one is always the most difficult. Remember that grief doesn't start after death, but rather when you start to accept death as a looming inevitability. Understanding these key details about grief will help you cope with it through a difficult holiday season. 

If you, or a loved one, are dealing with grief this holiday season, the following tips can help you make it through. 

Be realistic

The reason that it's important to understand the difficulty of coping with grief is that it will help you set realistic expectations for yourself. You may not be able to handle all of your typical holiday responsibilities. Between cooking, shopping, traveling and other annual holiday responsibilities, it's a stressful time for everyone. When you're also coping with grief, and potentialy providing care to an ailing loved one, there's not enough time to get everything done. Don't be ashamed to ask for help, and take others up on their offers. Think about upcoming events and decide if you want to attend them, or if alternate plans should be made. 

Let loved ones help

Whether they're there to help, or just there to provide comfort and fellowship, it's important to surround yourself with family and friends. These are the people that both care about you, and understand the grief you're currently experiencing. If you need to change your typicaly holiday plans, talk to your loved ones so they can still spend time with you. Don't cancel plans and try to spend too much time alone. Also, don't be afraid to share memories about the individual who is sick or recently passed away. These memories can often be a source of comfort. 

Let yourself be emotional

Especially when you're spending time around family that may also be grieving during the holidays, it's common to try to stifle your natural emotions and grieve the same way others are. No one grieves the same way, however. Your needs will be different than even those in your own family. While some will feel sadness, or even anger during the grieving process, others will want to share memories, laugh and feel joy. Neither of these methods are wrong. Neither mean you've forgotten or dishonored the recently deceased. Let yourself grieve your own way, and let others grieve their own way. 

Don't forget self care

If your grieving process includes prolonged periods of sadness, it can also lead to an abandonment of self care. Proper hygiene can be forgotten for days at a time, and you may become more sedentary. Physical exercise can often be an anti-depressant, and sometimes getting out of the house just to run an errand can make you feel better too. Be aware of how you're feeling, however, and avoid crowded places or a hectic schedule when you start to feel overwhelmed. Avoid self-medicating with alcohol, food, or other substances. Overall, simply be aware of your own well-being and do what is best for you. 

The holidays can be difficult when you're grieving, but when you have a plan and a support group of loved ones to help you, you can enjoy them.

At Cura-HPC, we know about grief and provide bereavement support to families of our patients for 13 months following death. If you or a loved one are in need of hospice care, contact us at 800-797-3839.  

Hospice care extends far beyond the medical care of the patient. A number of other services that benefit both the patient themselves and their family and loved ones are available and part of a typical care plan. One of these is bereavement care, which is provided to loved ones for 13 months following the patient's death. 

Grief and mourning is a natural part of this process, but often one that is difficult not only for the individual experiencing it, but also for those around them who want to help. Here are some thoughts on grief and mourning that might help you be of service to someone close to you who has recently experienced a loved one's death. 

What you need to help someone who's grieving

It can be difficult to help a friend who is grieving for a number of reasons. You can't bring back their loved one. And the uncomfortableness of death makes it hard for many of us to find the right words or actions to bring relief. Additionally, everyone grieves and mourns differently. So what is right for one person may not be comforting to another. There are some common things that everyone needs when helping a mourning friend, however. That includes plenty of time so you can be available to them and not make them feel rushed or like an inconvenience. You'll also need patience, perserverance, flexibility, optimism, understanding, warmth, and of course, compassion. You do not have to always know the perfect thing to say, or the perfect thing to do. Just being present, not judging, and trying to identify with the mourner is enough. 

Grief doesn't only begin after death

Many associate grief with the loss of a loved one, but for many, grief begins with the anticipation of loss. That can be as early as a terminal diagnosis is given as family begin to accept death as an inevitable outcome soon to occur. This grief combines not only the emotions that come with the loss of a family member, but also the physical and mental fatigue and general overwhelmed feeling that comes with caregiving. Understanding these finer details of grief can help you offer better support to those in need. 

Keys to successful support of somone who's grieving

As mentioned, everyone grieves in different ways. Each situation will be unique, but each will share a need for these keys of support. 

To offer support, you should be present. That means both physically present and mentally present. Put everything else on hold and put your phone away in order to support the needs of the mourner. 

Be able to demonstrate that you care for the person greiving. That can be done in a variety of ways, and being able to demonstrate this using the connection the two of you share will be especially meaningful. 

Be able to honor the journey through grief. This means not being judgmental and fully supporting the ways in which the individual chooses to grieve. That includes honoring and supporting family, cultural and religious traditions that may be involved in the grieving process. 

Your ultimate goal should be to help maintain the physical health, and emotional stability of the individual grieving. 

If you have questions about hospice care, the benefits it provides to both patients and their families, or end of life care in general, please contact us at Cura-HPC- 800-797-3839. 

Multiple studies have concluded that patients who enter hospice earlier, and spend more time in hospice care before death experience greater benefits. Now, a recent study has found that palliative care can have similar effects when initiated early in treatment. 

A research team at the Center for Psychiatric Oncology & Behavioral Sciences at Massachusetts General Hospital studied a group of patients with advanced lung and gastrointenstinal cancers to determine the effect palliative care had on their quality of life and coping abilities. The conclusion the team made at the end of the study was that early intervention of palliative care improved both of those metrics. 

Researchers began by organizing a group of 350 patients, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer. In doing so, they hoped to discover what palliative care administered early in treatment could do, as opposed to starting palliative care well after diagnosis. Randomly, this group was split with half set to receive palliative care, and the other half receiving usual care. 

In order to evaluate quality of life and mood, the patients were asked to complete questionnaires at intervals throughout the study. At the outset of the study, at 12 weeks, and at 24 weeks, the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy, and the Patient Health Quesionnaire were completed. The Brief COPE was also used in order to measure the patients' acceptance of their diagnosis, and their use of emotional support. 

These surveys showed that the group receiving palliative care felt they had a better quality of life and were experiencing less depression by 24 weeks. At the previous two intervals, the two groups were comparable on these two metrics. 

The palliative care group also were shown to be more likely to use active and engaging coping methods after 24 weeks of treatment than the group receiving usual care. 

Perhaps most interesting, the group in palliative care was more likely to have discussed end of life care options with family members and physicians than the group in usual care. That despite the fact that both groups contained a similar number of patients who considered their cancer unlikely to be cured. 

Researchers are confident that even though this study focused on specific types of cancer, the model of introducing palliative care early in treatment would prove to be similarly beneficial to other cancer patients, and likely patients with other illnesses as well. 

At Cura-HPC, we provide hospice and palliative care to patients throughout the Tulsa area, and Northeastern Oklahoma. If you have questions about end of life care for yourself or a loved one, we'd love for you to contact us at 800-797-3839. 

Recently, the true cost of hospice care has been a point of debate. Not only is the cost of care a concern for individuals and their families, but it's also a concern for government officials who must regulate the money spent through Medicare and Medicaid and ensure it's being spent honestly and with a valuable return. A recent study looked into how hospice care for nursing home patients impacted their care costs. Here's an overview of the findings from the research team from Indiana University's Center for Aging Research and the Regenstrief Institute. 

The team began by examining 2,510 long stay nursing home residents, of which a third received hospice care. According to their research, age, race and gender had no bearing on the findings concerning care costs and hospice care. 

They concluded that, even in cases where hospice care is provided for a prolonged amount of time, hospice services don't increase care costs for nursing home residents over the last six months of life. 

The primary factor that appears to allow hospice services to be administered without significantly raising care costs is that hospice patients are typically able to avoid costly hospitilization and the post-acute care that follows it late in life. 

While many may believe that hospice is given to patients in their own homes, and that is often the case, hospice care also takes place in nursing homes with specially trained hospice nurses and other staff come to the facility the same way they'd come to a patient's home. There are some additional obstacles and concerns when administering hospice and palliative care in nursing facilities. Namely, that it can be difficult to determine when residents with some diagnoses enter into the last few months of their life. 

These obstacles may be why many have questioned whether Medicare's hospice benefit is being used appropriately specifically for nursing facilty residents. The research conducted by Indiana University, however, found no evidence of cost shifting or dishonest spending. 

In most cases, there was little to no difference found between those in nursing facilities that elected to begin hospice care, and those that decided to forego hospice care. Two exceptions, cancer patients and advanced dementia patients, were found to elect hospice care more often than average. These findings are consistent with hospice statistics for patients outside of nursing facilities, as well. 

It's also important to note that the individuals studies in this research were predominantly disproportionately poor, non-white, and had been characterized by high health care costs. These individuals are rarely included in healthcare utilization studies. 

If you have questions about whether or not hospice and palliative care is right for you or a loved one, please contact us at Cura-HPC in Tulsa, Oklahoma: 800-797-3839.