I recently read an article entitled "Hospice Improves Care For Dementia Patients and Their Families" at www.eurekalert.org stating that hospice services substantially improved the provision of care and support for nursing home patients dying of dementia and their families.
Here are a few exerpts from the article that I found to be particularly interesting and helpful.
The research came as hospice funding was receiving particular scrutiny in the debate over Medicare spending. 538 family members of nursing home patients who died of dementia participated in the survey and were asked to reflect on the care and support they experienced and observed at their loved one's end of life. Of that group, 260 received hospice care and 278 did not.
Among the report's key findings:
Family members of hospice recipients were 51 percent less likely to report unmet needs and concerns with quality of care. They were 49 percent less likely to report an unmet need for management of pain. They were 50 percent less likely to have wanted more emotional support before their loved one's death. They rated the peacefulness of dying and the quality of dying more positively than families whose loved ones did not receive hospice care.
The survey also found that people who felt their loved one received hospice care "too late" had stronger concerns about care and support in almost every one of the survey's many measures. They felt worse off than people who had no hospice care at all.
Dementia is a particularly important area to study, because the untreatable condition has only recently gained recognition as being terminal illness. The unpredictability of its progress, however, has led to a large number of dementia patients staying in hospice for longer than people with other conditions. That has made dementia a focus for scrutiny in discussions of cost.
But the study provides new evidence that hospice provides a meaningful benefit to nursing home patients with dementia and their families.
For the full article please click here.
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