What’s the Role of a Hospice Nurse?
It’s been said that “nurses are the heart of healthcare.”* They’ve also been called angels, godsends, heroes, and agents of compassion — all true sentiments. In hospice, the role of a nurse takes on an even broader, yet more intimate role for patients with terminal illnesses who often spend their…
Benefits of Hospice Care for Lung Conditions & Pulmonary Diseases
Patients with end-stage respiratory conditions like lung cancer, COPD, emphysema, and other pulmonary issues often have an unpredictable disease progression, making prognosis difficult for patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals alike. Lung conditions frequently fluctuate with intermittent crisis episodes or hospitalizations followed by repeated periods of recovery. As a result, hospice…
How Heart to Heart Hospice Offers Specialized Veteran Care
As Memorial Day approaches, when the U.S. honors men and women who died while serving in the military, we also remember the aging veterans who served with honor. As they approach the end of life, it’s vital to partner with a well-informed hospice provider to help ease anxiety about the…
National Volunteer Week: Hospice Volunteers Make a Difference
Kindness, compassion, and service are hallmarks of those who give freely of their time for the betterment of others. They are called volunteers — and they make a huge impact by providing emotional, practical, and social support for hospice patients with a life-limiting illness and their families. “Volunteers help provide…
Start Vital Conversations Today: National Healthcare Decisions Day
No family likes having difficult conversations surrounding end-of-life decisions and death — but discussing these topics in advance offers necessary clarity and peace. April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day, and the perfect time to start the conversation is now. “Making healthcare decisions in calmer times is wise and loving,…
Counseling Awareness Month – Hospice and Mental Health
When people think of “hospice,” they often picture caring for the physical needs of a terminally ill patient in their final months of life. But compassionate hospice care improves a patient’s quality of life — no matter the quantity — and that includes their mental health. April is Counseling Awareness…
FAQs: The Differences Between Hospice and Palliative Care
While both hospice care and palliative care focus on a patient’s comfort and quality of life during a complex, serious illness, they are not the same. The main difference is this: Palliative care is given alongside a patient’s disease treatment plan, while hospice covers end-of-life care for a terminal disease.…
Safety at Home for Hospice Patients
As a caregiver for a hospice patient, you want to make sure your home is safe and comfortable for your loved one. Hospice benefits come with a team of compassionate experts, from nurses to social workers, but you carry the weight of daily care and responsibility. Many times, you assist…
How the Heart to Heart Hospice Foundation Serves Families
A compassionate hospice team that’s experienced and trained for end-of-life care is vital for caregivers and patients, including education, training, and medical and emotional support. But what about the needs that aren’t covered by insurance, like transportation, utility bill assistance, emergency household goods and food, or counseling for those requiring…
National Social Work Month – What Does a Hospice Social Worker Do?
Social workers play a vital role in hospice care, providing empathy, support, and advocacy for patients with terminal illnesses. With the hospice team approach, the wide spectrum of patients’ needs are met through professionals who understand end-of-life care. Nurses, aides, spiritual care coordinators, and others join social workers to offer…
Role Reversal: Parenting Our Parents
You may have heard it said that we all go through four phases of life. Each of these stages reflects a progressive role that we have with our parents and our children. First, we are born the child of a parent. Second, we eventually become the parent of a child.…
Communicating Love to Your Hospice Patient
Nestled in the middle of February, Valentine’s Day provides opportunities for us to express love and appreciation for each other. It’s always appropriate to share your fondness for your loved one on hospice; you don’t need to wait for a special day. Hospice is often a short period at the…
National Caregivers Day: Why Family
Caregivers are Heroes
Family caregivers are often the unseen (and unpaid) heroes wearing many hats, like assisting a loved one with medical care, nutrition, hygiene, and other activities of daily living; coordination of care and advocacy; transportation; dealing with medical paperwork; serving as an empathetic listener and more. When a relative qualifies for…
New year, now what? Overcoming the Uncertainty
of Your Hospice Journey
The calendar page turned over to a new year, but you may not feel like celebrating if you’re in the middle of caring for a loved one on hospice. A “Happy New Year” seems daunting as you continue to face the sometimes mundane, sometimes ever-changing burden of caregiving. You could…
How 24/7 On-Call Hospice Support
Brings Peace of Mind
One goal of hospice is keeping the patient comfortable at home — but it also serves as one of the major hesitations to go on hospice even if the patient qualifies. Patients with a terminal illness and families are afraid they’ll miss out on needed medical support or hospital-level care…
Calling on Respite Care for the Holidays
Holidays are a time of joy and celebration, but when a loved one is terminally ill, this festive time of year also invokes sadness and grief. With the holiday season upon us, it might make sense to consider hospice respite care for a loved one with an advanced illness. The…
Away From Home: How Hospice Works
in a Hospital or Nursing Home
Many people think hospice benefits solely cover in-home support for caregivers and patients with a terminal illness. But in reality, hospice can take place wherever a patient calls home — a private residence, nursing home, residential facility, or contracted inpatient facility or hospital. Hospice improves the quality of life in…
Heart to Heart Hospice Foundation Supports Alzheimer’s Walks
Heart to Heart Hospice provides for patients and their families through medical care and support but also donates time and resources to causes near and dear to their hearts. Every year, Heart to Heart Hospice Foundation sponsors, and Heart to Heart Hospice employees volunteer at Walk to End Alzheimer’s events in their…
Caring for Hospice Patients Over the Holidays
As storefronts, neighborhoods, and city sidewalks transform into holiday wonderlands, hospice patients and caregivers often feel a range of emotions: disconnect, guilt, depression, loneliness, anger, and fear. Some families want to bypass the holidays completely, while others may want the celebrations to continue as normally as possible. A loved one…
10 Facts About Hospice: Busting Myths About End-of-Life Care
For many, the term “hospice” conjures up fears of giving up on a loved one who has a life-limiting illness such as terminal cancer, congestive heart failure, kidney or lung disease, or dementia. The truth is, however, that hospice supports patients and families with a host of services that provide…
Providing Compassionate End-of-Life Care for Alzheimer’s
Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease is an often difficult road that requires wisdom, compassion, and support. Over 11 million Americans* provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementia diseases. The need for dementia-related caregiving is on the rise. In fact, stats show that more Medicare…
What Veterans Day means for Veteran Hospice Patients
America’s veterans are rightly honored for their sacrificial military service, and in turn they deserve utmost respect as they face unique end-of-life challenges. But trauma, guilt, and other service-related factors may negatively impact veterans and their families when dealing with a life-limiting illness. Hospice staff and family caregivers can learn…
When Breast Cancer is Terminal: Vital Comfort & Support from Hospice Care
Though it impacts millions of people across the U.S., an individual’s life takes a drastic turn the moment they hear the words “you have breast cancer.” October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the stats can be sobering: 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer before the…
Cold Weather Tips & Specialized Care for End-Stage Lung Disease
Difficulty breathing is one of the most stressful symptoms for patients with chronic lung conditions, and colder fall and winter temperatures can exacerbate respiratory problems. The dry, cold air tightens airways, resulting in heavy coughing, excessive mucus, shortness of breath, and increased discomfort. Patients often rush back to the emergency…
How to Manage Sundowners Syndrome at Home
If you’re a caregiver for an aging loved one in the home, you may notice they become more agitated and confused as afternoon fades into evening, often continuing into the night. You may be unaware, however, that this phenomenon is known as Sundowners Syndrome, or Sundowning, and is most common…
Personal Hygiene: Caregiver Tips for At-Home Hospice Patients
When you transition from family member to caregiver, you’re not only coordinating medical care, you often assist with personal hygiene and Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). You want your loved one on hospice to be free from pain, but also to feel dignity and respect. Your family member on hospice…
Benefits of Specialized Hospice Care for Heart Conditions
While heart disease is the number one cause of death among adults in the United States, only 6.4% of Medicare hospice beneficiaries have a primary diagnosis that is heart-related. That means many patients with congestive heart failure or other cardiac conditions are dying alone or in the hospital without comfort…
Overcoming Gaps from Referral to Hospice Care
Many patients who discontinue curative treatments don’t take advantage of hospice care, even with a doctor’s referral. While hospice referrals appear to be increasing, one out of 10 referrals still never receive care within 30 days of discharge (source: Trella Health). Why is that? During one of the most stressful…
Hospice Doesn’t Take a Vacation
– but Hospice Patients Can
Taking in one last mountain sunrise. Attending your granddaughter’s wedding. Digging your toes in the sand. Visiting your adult child for an extended stay. One common myth about end-of-life care is that hospice patients cannot travel. Many imagine the last few months mean the patient is strictly homebound and bedridden…
Goodbye Too Soon: How Hospice Helped One Family Provide Care & Dignity for Their Son
Jerry and Fran Mowrey faced the unthinkable when their 25-year-old son Justin passed out at work, a mass on his brain discovered soon after. As his parents, they faithfully walked alongside him for years of surgeries, cancer treatments, strokes, and major setbacks. “Justin was an amazing young man — kind,…
How Heart to Heart Hospice Benefits the Whole Family
An Interview with Gulf Coast Executive Director David Slaughter “We want our patients to have the best quality of life no matter what the quantity is,” said David Slaughter, Executive Director of Heart to Heart Hospice in the Texas Gulf Coast branch. He shared his heart for the hospice industry…
Pet Therapy Benefits Hospice Patients
Pet Therapy Provides Comfort and Delight for Hospice Patients “Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” —Author Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red There’s no denying the special bond between people and their pets, who provide happiness, comfort, and companionship. The same is true for…
One Last Chance: Using a Memory Journal to Guide Your Hospice Visit
Visiting a loved one on hospice care can be a scary thing. You don’t know what to say. You are dealing with your own grief. You’re afraid you’ll make your dying loved one and their caregivers feel even more emotional. So you procrastinate or avoid a visit altogether. But in…
Nanci’s Story: Hospice Nurses Provide More than Medical Care
Nanci Phillips has been called an “angel” more than once during her time as a nurse with Heart to Heart Hospice in Texas’s Permian Basin region. She humbly sidesteps the compliment, saying she’s simply doing her job. But the job of a hospice nurse requires much more than medical knowledge…
When a Hospice Worker Becomes a Family Caregiver
What happens when a hospice professional becomes a family caregiver? Hospice employees — whether a nurse, aide, or spiritual care coordinator — are accustomed to walking through the dying process with terminally ill patients and their families. But when it’s your own loved one, the importance of compassionate hospice care…
How to Help Children Cope with Death
Grief can be confusing, especially to a child. As a parent or close adult walking alongside a child grieving the death of a loved one, the goal isn’t to avoid sadness but to help them process it in a healthy way. For young children, the permanency of death is difficult…
Hospice Caregiving: What I Wish I’d Said to My Dying Loved One
I wish I would’ve asked… “What’s your favorite memory with me?” “What do you want us to remember about you?” “What do you want me to tell your son or daughter?” “That hurt then, but I forgive you.” After a prolonged illness and months of hospice care followed by the…
Combatting Caregiver Burnout During & After a Pandemic
The essential work of caring for hospice patients didn’t stop during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, two years later, “pandemic fatigue” still lingers for hospice workers, patients, and family caregivers. Even at the height of the pandemic in 2020, employees at Heart to Heart Hospice continued to provide…
Grieving the Loss of Someone from a Complicated Relationship
Grief has many layers when a relationship is healthy, but even more so when you have a complicated relationship with the person who died, such as an absent or abusive parent, a sibling who caused constant conflict in the family, or an unloving spouse. When someone was the source of…
Many Families Wait Too Long: Benefits of Starting Hospice Care Sooner
Requesting hospice services can be difficult for families, the terminally ill, and their health care providers. Medical requirements, countless unknowns, and the emotional implications often cause patients and caregivers to wait too long to utilize the full benefits of hospice care. According to a 2021 report by the National Hospice…
Can a Dying Person Still Hear?
How to Meaningfully Say Goodbye If your loved one in hospice care becomes nonverbal and unresponsive, it’s easy to believe the misconception that they can’t hear you. A recent study, however, reveals that hearing is the last sense that remains for dying patients. With this in mind, Heart to Heart…
Bereavement Support During The Holiday Seasons
Five Ways to Get through the Holidays after Loss: Bereavement Support after Hospice Care “Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.” -Anne Roiphe, Author After the death of a loved one, especially one you’ve cared for during their hospice journey, the…
How To Spend The Holiday With A Loved One On Hospice
Caregiving During the Holidays: Reduce Stress for a Memorable Last Christmas While the Christmas season ushers in joyful traditions, the needs of your loved one with end-stage illness don’t take a holiday. Grief is normal as you navigate holidays that look different than years past. As a caregiver for someone…
Understanding the Different Levels of Hospice Care
Many terminally ill patients wish to spend their final months or weeks at home surrounded by loved ones instead of in the hospital. Hospice care helps make that possible with resources and a support team available at many different stages. Understanding these levels of hospice care helps families know support…
Chaplain Support in End of Life Hospice Care
Chaplain’s Role in End-of-Life Care: Offering Emotional and Spiritual Support Chaplains or spiritual care coordinators are an essential part of your hospice team. During this tender time, patients and families are reflective of their lives and seeking comfort and hope. “A human is fundamentally a spiritual being dressed in a…
Caregiver’s Corner: Hospice Caregiving as Someone Approaches Death
You’re never truly ready to let a loved one go, even if they’ve suffered a long-term illness that has caused a slow decline in health. And as a caregiver for someone approaching death, the release can be even more painful. You’ve created routines to make them comfortable. You’ve shared quiet…
Caregiver’s Corner: Understanding Hospice Care for Your Terminally Ill Loved One
There is no manual when it comes to saying good-bye to a loved one. Heart to Heart Hospice wants to partner with caregivers to help answer your frequent questions, while providing comfort, support and dignity for end-of-life care. Our new Caregiver’s Corner blog series will compassionately address your concerns and…
Who Qualifies for Hospice Care?
Caring for a patient with a terminal illness is difficult enough for families, and involving hospice care means creating a support system for medical, emotional, spiritual, psychosocial and practical needs. One of the most frequent questions we receive is “How do I know if my loved one qualifies for hospice…
Criteria for Hospice Care
Heart to Heart Hospice Criteria for Hospice Care In 2018, over 1.5 million individuals with Medicare coverage received hospice care. This large number does not reflect hospice care recipients with alternative health care coverage. If you or a loved one are living with a life-threatening condition, you may be wondering…
What Does Hospice Provide?
What Does Hospice Provide? It's a question that fewer Americans know the answer to than we might expect. That isn't to say it should be surprising; Americans often have a hard time discussing life-limiting illnesses and their treatment. If you are considering hospice care for a loved one or just…
Heart to Heart Hospice Myths and Facts
There are many misconceptions about hospice. We want you to know the facts about hospice care and all the benefits it provides for patients and their families. Myth: Hospice is a place. Fact: Hospice care is a service that can be provided anywhere the patient calls home. Our trained, compassionate…
How to Select a Hospice Provider
When deciding whether to continue cancer treatment, the American Cancer Society recommends, “at some point you may need to consider that further treatment is not likely to improve your health or change your outcome or survival. At the same time, it might have side effects that could affect your quality…
