What Is the Difference Between Palliative Care and Hospice Care?
Palliative and hospice care provide you and your loved ones with much-needed support when facing a serious illness. Here's what you need to know about these two important specialized types of care.
By Steven Tepper, DO, MBA, CHCQM, and Lynn Durmala, ACHPN, Virtua Hospice and Palliative Care
When you’re facing a serious illness or struggling with multiple conditions that impact your quality of life, there are specialized types of care that can provide you and your loved ones with much-needed support.
Here’s what you need to know about palliative and hospice care.
What Is Palliative Care?
Palliative care focuses on relieving the symptoms, pain, and stress caused by illnesses such as cancer, heart failure, kidney disease, pulmonary disease, and dementia. It is provided along with curative treatment, like chemotherapy or dialysis.
Palliative care can be provided in the hospital or the comfort of your home. It is appropriate at any age and stage of a serious or chronic illness and is covered by most insurance plans.
Palliative care takes a team approach, involving doctors, nurses, social workers, and pastoral care. The team helps to ensure you and your loved ones understand diagnoses and treatment options so you can make informed choices.
The Virtua palliative care team coordinates services and advocates for the patient by making sure patients and doctors are on the same page. We talk with the patient, try to establish what is important to them, and align care with their wishes.
What Is Hospice Care?
Hospice serves patients with a life expectancy of six months or less. It focuses on providing comfort and ensuring the best possible quality of life rather than pursuing ongoing treatments for terminal illness.
In addition to managing pain and other troubling symptoms, like shortness of breath and difficulty swallowing, hospice helps you and your loved ones address feelings of anxiety, depression, and grief.
Hospice care is provided wherever you consider home and typically includes nursing care, home health aides, medical equipment and supplies, end-of-life planning, and bereavement support. It is covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and most insurance plans.
Care Focused on You
We often don’t think about living with a serious or life-limiting condition that requires long-term medical care. At Virtua, our palliative care and hospice teams work closely with you, your loved ones and doctors to improve your quality of life based on your individual needs.
To learn more about palliative care services, call 856-355-7155. To learn more about hospice care, call 833-495-6655.
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