![]() An article, “The TLC Model of Palliative Care in the Elderly: Preliminary Application in the Assisted Living Setting” in the Annals of Family Medicine, describes 5 barriers to palliative care with the elderly who live in assisted living facilities. We can definitely generalize this to most situations where the elderly would benefit from palliative care. Basically, the 5 barriers to palliative care for them are:
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![]() There is a blog post with some interesting points and comments that I’d like you to read, The Danger of For-Profit Hospices. The title alone gave me chills, did it do it to you too? I guess in some people’s minds, only those working in non-profits have the hospice heart, or give the best service and of course that is not true. It totally depends on the company. Who owns the company is a good question and matters to a point. I’ve worked at 3 for-profit hospices and one nonprofit. One of the for-profits was ![]() I wanted to revisit a study that came out 2 years ago (in case any of you missed it). I remember I had been looking for quite awhile for a study that would validate what we know in hospice–that if you come into hospice sooner, you have a good chance of living longer. There was not one. The closest I came to was an article written by a doctor stating another doctor did a study that came to this conclusion, but I couldn’t find the study (there were no references in the article). I needed more than that. Then, the following article came on the scene in March 2007: “Comparing Hospice and Nonhospice Patient Survival Among Patients Who Die Within a Three-Year Window” ![]() When someone is dying a natural death, there is a breathing pattern that usually happens. It goes something like this: a deep breath or 2, then holding it, followed by a shallow breath or 2, and so on. It is an uneven pattern of inhales and exhales. It can be scary if you don’t know it is coming. Another thing that happens is as the person gets closer to death, the time between inhales widens. When breaths are towards 20-30 seconds apart, death may be happening very soon. I say “may” because there is always someone who may have this breathing pattern and live much longer. Overall, breaths will be getting more shallow and the time between inhales will space out. There are exceptions to everything, but generally this is what you will see. Of course right now I want to tell you all the ways it could be different and how many ways breathing can look even with the above very general guidelines. The best thing to do is when you are going through this time, ask you hospice doctor or nurse about it and ask them to show you ![]() When a person is dying, she is retreating from everything outside of her. She has little energy for anything outside of what is going on in her internal world. She cannot respond the same to conversation. It takes much effort to answer questions. To engage someone in the normal back and forth conversational style can be overwhelming for her. Instead, tell a story. |
AuthorIn fall 2014, I moved some old blog posts here that I had written years ago from 2007 to 2010. Hope they are helpful. Archives
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