"The truly fortunate cross the final stages of life with loving companions"
The Hospice Concept
The Arkansas Valley Hospice exists for the purpose of helping patients that have a terminal illness. The hospice program provides medical, physical, spiritual and emotional care. Care is directed toward comfort and emphasizes symptom control and pain managment. Hospice affirms the value of life in all its phases and that the final stage of life is as natural as the beginning. It need not be a frightening, painful, lonely time but can be experienced richly in an atmosphere of love and concern. Hospice services are available to people who can no longer benefit from, or choose not to receive, further treatment.
Hospice Provides:
- Pain & Symptom Control
- Counseling & Support for Patient & Family
- Bereavement & Spiritual Care
- Help Dealing with Ethical or Financial Issues
Hospice care is available to patients in a variety of settings. These include a patient's home, assisted living facility, or in the nursing home. Terminally ill patients often have many needs which the staff of the assisted living or nursing home cannot fully meet. These special needs may include symptom control, personal care, and emotional or spiritual support. Hospice will supplement the care already being given by the facility staff and provides support and education to facility staff. If you have further questions or would like to have Arkansas Valley Hospice provide an explantion of services please call (719) 384-8827.
Why Hospice?
- Hospice offers help and support to the patient and family on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week basis. Patients routinely receive periodic in-house services of a nurse, hospice aide, social worker, and other members of the hospice interdisciplinary team.
- Hospice treats the person, not the disease. Hospice professionals and volunteers address the medical, social, psychological, and spiritual needs of the patient and family.
- Hospice considers the entire family, not just the patient, the "unit of care". Patients and families are included in the decision making-process, and bereavement counseling is provided to the family following the death of their loved one.
- Hospice offers palliative, rather than curative treatment. Sophisticated methods of pain and symptom control enable the patient to live as fully and comfortable as possible.
- Hospice emphasizes quality, rather than length of life. Hospice neither hastens nor postpones death: it affirms life and regards dying as a normal process.
- Hospice a covered benefit under Medicare, Medicaid, and most private insurance plans.
*Excerpt from NHPCO's Timeline Phases of Hospice Care
*Arkansas Valley Hospice is a non-profit organization and is registered as such with all Federal, State, and Local entities, as required by law.