Hospice and Palliative Care
A diagnosis of advanced cancer – with little chance for a cure – can place a severe strain on you and your family. However, even when a cure is not likely, you have several care options to help you address physical, emotional, spiritual, and practical needs of everyday living.
Palliative care, sometimes called comfort care, allows you to enjoy life more fully by addressing symptoms, spiritual needs, and other psychological or social issues. Our palliative
care team frequently focuses on relieving pain, maximizing breathing ability, and controlling nausea, vomiting, and constipation. We can provide these services alongside life-prolonging or lifesaving cancer treatment and continue them even if cancer
treatment is discontinued.
We also can discuss with you important subjects such as your goals for care, advance directives, and working with your family to fulfill your wishes.
Hospice care is a type of palliative care generally reserved for the last six months of life – to improve the quality of your time with family and friends once curative treatment stops.
The options of palliative care and hospice care become more important as prolonging life becomes less of a focus and living the highest quality of life each day becomes your priority.
Benefits Of Palliative Care
With palliative care, you can expect to receive our team’s help and support with the following issues:
- Managing physical symptoms, such as pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, shortness of breath, and insomnia
- Providing psychological and spiritual support
- Helping family members cope with caregiving responsibilities and keeping their own lives balanced
- Providing support and resources for financial, legal, insurance, and end-of-life concerns
Private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid all provide some coverage for palliative care services. Check your plan to learn what is covered.
Hospice Services
Hospice care focuses on you as a whole person, helping you take steps to live as comfortably and as fully as possible. It does not mean you are “giving up hope.” You can leave hospice at any time to return to active cancer treatment.
Hospice care is available at all Premier Health cancer centers. It includes:
- Symptom control for pain, nausea, and other side effects of cancer and its treatment. This includes medicines that balance making you feel better with keeping you alert to life around you.
- Medical equipment, such as a hospital bed or wheelchair, to make you more comfortable
- Home care, surrounded by family and friends. If your caregivers are unable to keep you at home, hospice care also can be provided in a hospital, a long-term care facility or an inpatient hospice center
- Spiritual care, giving you the opportunity to discuss death and religious beliefs, as well as plan or discuss a ritual or ceremony
- Care coordination of all members of your care team, seven days a week, 24 hours a day
Hospice Care at Upper Valley Medical Center
Ohio’s Hospice of Miami County provides a seven-bed inpatient unit inside Upper Valley Medical Center. The nonprofit hospice is constructing a freestanding, inpatient Hospice House on the UVMC campus, scheduled to open in 2021.
The building will initially have 12 beds. There will be an interfaith chapel, a spa and massage room for patients, exterior doors in all patient rooms to enable them to enjoy the outdoors, private meeting spaces for families, a large family living area, and a center of excellence meeting space for clinical and community education programs.
Services – provided to anyone who qualifies, regardless of the patient’s insurance coverage or ability to pay – are currently provided in patient homes, extended care and assisted living facilities, and the UVMC dedicated inpatient care wing at UVMC.
Contact Us
Call the Premier Health cancer hotline at (844) 316-HOPE(844) 316-4673 (4673), Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., to connect with a Premier Health cancer navigator.