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November is National Home Care, Hospice and Palliative Care Month, a time to raise awareness about care for all those coping with life-limiting or threatening illnesses. At Valley Health System, we offer home care, hospice and palliative care services with a focus on comfort and pain prevention, which can accompany serious illness. Here are some common questions about these services.
Q. What is home care?
A. Home care includes any professional support services that allow a person to live safely in their home.
Q. What is hospice care?
A. Hospice is a care option when a patient is faced with a life-limiting disease, illness or injury, and has received a prognosis of six months or less, as determined by a physician. Hospice’s holistic approach addresses the medical, emotional, financial and spiritual issues that patients and families face during this challenging time in their lives.
Q. What is palliative care?
A. Palliative care enhances medical treatment to help patients with serious, life-limiting or incurable illnesses experience the highest quality of life possible. These illnesses can include congestive heart failure, advanced cancer, chronic lung disorders (COPD, pulmonary fibrosis), kidney failure, neurological disorders (dementia, Parkinson’s) and life-limiting diseases (ALS). Services provide patients and their loved ones with comfort, support and assistance to ease the burden of illness for both patients and their families. Palliative care can be helpful at any stage of illness.
Q. Where can someone receive hospice or palliative care?
A. Hospice care may be provided at home, in an assisted living facility or in a nursing home. Palliative care can be provided in the hospital, in-home settings, assisted living and select nursing facilities. At Valley, palliative care can also be offered at the office located at the Robert and Audrey Luckow Pavilion in Paramus.
Q. What services are offered through home care at Valley?
A. Valley Home Care offers many services, including skilled nursing; specialty clinicians in infusion therapy, wound care, ostomy and continence, cardiac care and diabetes care; maternal and child health services; rehabilitation such as physical, occupational and speech therapy; home health aides; nutritional counseling; medical administration and education; hospice; palliative care; home safety; and social services.
Q. What services are offered through hospice care at Valley?
A. Valley Hospice provides high-quality end-of-life medical, support and comfort services for patients for whom a cure is not possible. With more than 40 years of expertise in managing the emotional, personal and medical end-of-life issues confronted by patients and their families, the Valley Hospice multidisciplinary team respects patients’ choices in order to assist them to live the best they can for as long as they can.
Our team of nurses, social workers, chaplains, home health aides, volunteers and our medical director are experts in end-of-life medical care, pain management, bereavement services, end-of-life-doula services and emotional and spiritual support. The goals, beliefs and wishes of the patient and family drive the care provided.
Q. What services are offered through palliative care at Valley?
A. Valley’s Palliative Care programs offer an integrative team approach that focuses on preventing or relieving pain and other physical, emotional or spiritual distress.
Our team, which includes advanced practice nurses, social workers, chaplains and volunteers, offers services such as medical decision-making assistance, pain and symptom management, emotional and spiritual support, care coordination and assistance with life-planning decisions.
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To learn more about home care, hospice, and palliative care at Valley Health System, please visit ValleyHealth.com/HomeCare.
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