Hospice benefits

Buggytoo

My DH was just approved for hospice services. He has been in a pretty rapid decline since moving into a wonderful residential memory care home in November 2024. While I am grateful that his remaining time with this wretched disease may be limited, am having trouble figuring out what value add the hospice services might provide. I would love to hear from others who have benefited from the add-ons of hospice service in a memory care setting.

bether00

My mom was in a group home with wonderful care, and they recommended hospice at her end of life. There were many benefits, but some that made a difference for us included: coordinating/ordering/delivering equipment as her needs changed like oxygen, a new bed, wheelchair; on call doctor to discuss treatment plans as needs changed who was focused on your priorities; medication management to control for changes in pain. They also had additional services for me, including a social worker for additional support and check in calls. The best part was I got more frequent calls as needs changed so I could talk with a nurse who visited to her directly if there were changes that her home hadn’t notified me on. Last, is that if there’s a major event you will call hospice vs having to go to a hospital. I didn’t want my mom in a hospital knowing how disturbing and stressful that would be for her at end of life. I didn’t realize how much I would come to value the hospice care team, but they really seamlessly folded into the other wonderful care and would absolutely recommend.

Vitruvius

My DW has been in an MCF for 2.5 years. My DW is now at the very end of her journey at Stage 7f. She has not opened her eyes or uttered a word in months, her muscles are severely contracted and she does not make any movements on her own. She still responds to being fed by hand however, otherwise you would think she was comatose.

After the first six months she qualified for hospice which she has been on since. She was with one agency for the first six months and they inexplicably discharged her. The MCF suggested a second agency who qualified her immediately and she has been with them since. The MCF gets some benefit as hospice provides someone to help bath her, which the MCF would have done in any case.

As for benefits that my DW would not have gotten without hospice, the primary benefit is that a registered nurse with dementia expertise visits her at least twice a week. The nurse sees other patients at the MCF so is there almost every day, so the MCF medtech is able to consult the nurse over even little things that they might not have thought important enough to call in a nurse for otherwise. At my request the nurse also contacts me at least once a week to give me an update on her decline.

The hospice doctor has taken over as my DW’s PCP effectively, which has made changes in her meds quite easy, and the hospice provides any meds that are related to her dementia without cost to me, such as the meds to ease her muscle contractions.

Earlier on when my DW was a bit more aware, the hospice sent a music therapist weekly for a personal visit even though my DW was also participating in the MCFs daily music program. A social worker from the hospice visits her occasionally and then contacts me but this really doesn’t accomplish much for me.

All-in-all I think it is very beneficial for my DW to be on hospice even though she is resident in a MCF.

Carl46

Another thing hospice provided for my mother was a visiting chaplain. She sat and talked with my mother every week to the end of her life. It was a good thing.