Can You Help Your Family Get Comfortable with the Idea of Hospice?
Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of hospice care when it’s time. There may be some family members who are not sure that is the right next step. You can be the bridge between family members and hospice for your senior.
Hospice Equals Grief for Some People
The word “hospice” has some strong connotations for so many people. Because hospice helps with end-of-life concerns, it’s closely associated with death and with dying. And that means sadness, grief, and loss. It makes perfect sense that some of your family members are going to want to avoid situations that bring up feelings that are upsetting for them.
Education Goes a Long Way
Few people know much about hospice care unless they’ve seen what happens firsthand. That means that you may need to do some educating to help them to fully understand what happens next. Hospice care providers can give you the information you can share with other family members. They can also talk directly with family members, to help them to understand what happens next in the process.
Encourage Them to Talk to You
This is an emotional time for everyone involved. Family members are likely to be feeling a range of different emotions and they might take those out on you, even if that’s not warranted. If they’re willing to keep an open line of communication with you, that can help both of you immensely. Some family members might not feel comfortable opening up to you, though, especially if they’re experiencing a range of negative emotions. That’s where hospice can help again. They can set you and family members up with counselors experienced in this exact situation.
Involve Other Family Members as Much as Your Senior Is Comfortable
Something else to consider is that your elderly family member may have privacy concerns. It might not be that she wants to keep all family members out of what’s going on, but perhaps she only wants certain family members to be aware of certain things. Respecting her wishes in this will help her to rest and to enjoy the time that she has left.
Hospice care can do so much to help your senior during this stage of her life, but they can help your entire family, too. Between lightening the care load, assisting with random tasks, and linking you and other family members up with services that help solve problems, hospice can be the answer for all of you.