If you or a family member has been diagnosed with a serious illness (like advanced cancer or congestive heart failure), you might have heard the terms “comfort care” or “hospice.”
But what do these terms mean?
Are they the same?
Can you receive comfort care while still getting curative treatments (like chemotherapy)?
What’s the difference in comfort care vs. hospice?
In the midst of a difficult diagnosis, it can be confusing to know what these terms really mean. But understanding the difference can help you get appropriate care for yourself or your loved one.
Comfort Care vs. Hospice
What Is Comfort Care?
Comfort care (also called palliative care) focuses on helping people feel better by managing symptoms, pain, and stress from serious illnesses. Palliative care and hospice used to be different words for the same thing, but that’s no longer the case. Over time, palliative (or comfort) care has come to include a broader scope of service — not just end-of–life situations.
Comfort care can be provided at any stage of illness. A patient can receive comfort care alongside treatments aimed at curing the disease.
Comfort care focuses on:
- Managing Symptoms: Along with treatment for the illness, providers aim to manage symptoms like pain, nausea, and fatigue.
- Emotional and Psychological Support: Serious illnesses can take an emotional toll. Comfort care can include counseling, therapy, and mental health services to help patients and families cope with the emotional challenges of a disease.
- Spiritual Care: Comfort care often includes spiritual support like pastoral care, meditation, and other practices that bring peace and solace.
- Family Support: Families face their own challenges when a loved one is sick. Comfort care teams support and educate families, helping them understand the illness and coordinate care.
- Whatever Is Important to the Patient: In comfort care, providers talk about the patient’s goals, values, and preferences to ensure the care plan aligns with what matters most to them.
What Is Hospice Care?
If you’re thinking, “That sounds a lot like hospice care,” you’re right!
Hospice care focuses on many of the same things as comfort care — but there’s a key difference.
Hospice is designed for patients who are in the final stages of an illness, typically when they have a life expectancy of six months or less.
Hospice care is also about providing comfort and support. But the focus shifts from trying to cure the illness to making the patient’s remaining time as meaningful and comfortable as possible.
At Envision Hospice, patient care plans include:
- Pain and Symptom Management: Minimizing pain and distressing symptoms is a top priority. A patient’s care includes medications and therapies tailored to their specific needs.
- Personal Care: Hospice nurses help patients with health and hygiene needs like bathing, dressing, and eating. This is a way they can ensure a patient’s dignity and comfort.
- Emotional and Spiritual Support: Your hospice team can include a chaplain, social workers, volunteers, and other resources to help patients and their families process their emotions and find peace.
- Bereavement Support: After a loved one passes, families need support too. Hospice connects loved ones with counseling, support groups, and resources to help cope with their loss.
Envision Hospice provides care in the place that’s best for your circumstances: at your home, an assisted living facility, or a nursing home. We work with you to provide the care you need.
Deciding Between Comfort Care vs. Hospice
Sometimes patients and families wonder whether they should continue pursuing treatment to cure a disease or whether they should shift to hospice to focus on quality of life over curative treatment. When a patient’s prognosis isn’t certain, it can be hard to determine the appropriate kind of care.
Making these kinds of decisions can feel overwhelming and confusing. Deciding between comfort care and hospice depends on multiple factors:
- The stage of the illness
- The goals of care
- What the patient wants
Comfort care can be provided at any stage of a serious illness and can work alongside treatments intended to cure or control the disease. Hospice care, however, is for when curative treatments are no longer an option for the patient. The focus of hospice is on comfort and quality of life.
In choosing between palliative or hospice care, the goals of care matter, too. If the goal is to continue treatments to cure or manage the illness, it might not be the right time for hospice. Comfort care helps manage side effects and improve overall well-being while pursuing a cure.
However, if the focus has shifted to ensuring comfort and quality of life in the final months, hospice care is likely the better option.
It’s important to have open and honest conversations with your loved one. What are their wishes? Is curative treatment still an option? Talking through this topic can ensure that a patient gets care that aligns with their goals.
Comfort Care vs. Hospice — Quality of Life, Comfort, and Care
Here at Envision Hospice, we know that making healthcare decisions for a loved one with a serious illness can feel overwhelming and confusing. But you don’t have to go through this process alone. Our team is here to answer your questions. We want you or your loved one to get the care that fits your goals and needs.
Both comfort care and hospice care can offer pain management, emotional and psychological support, spiritual care, and family support.
The main difference is the timing and the specific goals of care.
Comfort care can be an integral part of the treatment journey (from diagnosis through all stages of an illness). Hospice care takes over when the focus changes to end-of-life care — so that a patient can live their final months with dignity and comfort. Deciding between comfort care and hospice is a very personal decision. If the right choice for you or your loved one is hospice, we’re here to provide the information and resources you need.