When you have a life-limiting illness, Capital Hospice offers compassionate, expert care that helps you to live each day to the fullest. Once the decision has been made to stop curative treatment, the focus is on attainable comfort rather than unachievable cure.
While end of life is obviously an extremely difficult part of the life cycle, it also provides special opportunities - to strengthen relationships, to put one’s affairs in order, to find spiritual peace. This is only possible, however, if the patient can find effective relief from the pain and symptoms characterizing the progression of life-limiting illness.
When surveyed, more than 90 percent of Americans said they would prefer to die at home. Yet more than two-thirds die in nursing homes and hospitals.
Capital Hospice is not a place; it is a comprehensive program of services that comes to you. We want you to be as comfortable and alert as possible, spending precious time with your loved ones in the familiar surroundings of the home environment, whether a private home, apartment, assisted living or long-term care facility, or nursing home.
Expenses such as medication, medical equipment and visits by the hospice team related to the illness for which you are in hospice care are covered by Medicare Part A. Hospice care also is covered under Medicaid, most private insurance plans, HMOs, and other managed care plans.
Capital Hospice does not turn away anyone seeking our services because they don't have insurance or the resources to pay for their care. We can do this thanks to the support and generosity of the community we serve.
The shift is from cure to comfort. Capital Hospice patients work with a special team of health professionals with expertise in palliative care - a medical specialty devoted to relieving pain and managing symptoms, not to curing a disease. Few doctors and nurses outside hospice have this specialized training.
When a patient is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, everyone involved experiences periods of stress, uncertainty, doubt, worry, and confusion. Capital Hospice considers you and your loved ones—family members being whomever the patient determines to be his or her family—as a single unit of care.
Besides regularly-scheduled home visits, you can always talk by telephone to a nurse who is trained to assess unexpected situations. The nurse can answer your questions and ease your mind. When the situation warrants, a nurse can be dispatched to the home at any time. We can be reached by phone 24 hours daily, 365 days per year.
Hospice neither prolongs life nor hastens death. We provide personalized services, information and a caring community so that you and your family can make end of life a time that need not be filled with fear and anxiety.
You may not be in control of your illness, but you are in control of your care. Recognizing that ignorance promotes fear, Capital Hospice professionals provide the information you need to make informed, thoughtful decisions.
However, you and your loved ones make those choices.
Because the nature of dying is unique, it is always our goal to be sensitive and responsive to the special requirements of your situation. We want you and your loved ones to remain as in charge of your lives as possible.
Capital Hospice assigns a bereavement coordinator to handle support for surviving loved ones. The hospice team includes a doctor, home health nurse, certified nursing assistant, social worker, chaplain, grief counselor, dietician, and specially trained patient care volunteer(s). Physical and occupational therapists are utilized if needed.
With its range of expertise, the Capital Hospice team can address the whole scope of end-of-life issues, taking a tremendous weight off of your shoulders.
Your primary care physician will continue in that role, or you can select a Capital Hospice physician - it’s up to you. In either case, the doctor must sign off on all treatment orders and plans recommended by the hospice team.
A good coach teaches, supports, and demonstrates. Caring for a loved one at home involves learning many new skills. Capital Hospice team members do a lot of teaching, showing caregivers how to change dressings, use a pain pump, bathe the patient, deliver medications on schedule, provide oral care, and more.
Legal and financial concerns as well as medical issues have to be addressed. These subjects can be scary, and most everyone feels anxious. In addition, many families have unresolved issues that can make communication difficult.
Unfortunately, these patterns tend to intensify during a crisis, increasing feelings of isolation and helplessness.
The Capital Hospice team can help open the lines of communication.
End of life can be a very special time for you and your family. With pain and symptoms under control, you can attend to several issues pressing for your attention:
You are never “locked in” to Capital Hospice; you can opt out of hospice care at any time without penalty. In fact, when pain and symptoms are managed effectively, many patients show improvement. Sometimes a patient’s condition improves or stabilizes to the extent that he or she can temporarily do without hospice services.
Hospice patients are not necessarily bed-ridden, either. Thanks to expert pain and symptom management, we have patients who are able to fly across country to attend a special family event, to visit a cherished place and to enjoy simple pleasures like a walk in the park.
For you and your loved ones, the grief process begins with the terminal diagnosis, as everyone begins to contemplate the many losses ahead. The Capital Hospice social worker helps to process this “anticipatory grief.” After death, our Point of Hope Grief Counseling Center offers bereavement services—support groups, counseling, and education— to your loved ones for 13 months.
Another benefit of hospice care: Caregivers often find the grieving process easier to manage after having been intimately involved in the end-of-life process.
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