The holiday season can be a time of joy, celebration, and family togetherness. For patients and caregivers, however, it can amplify feelings of vulnerability and being overwhelmed. As communities transform with sparkling lights and decorations, hospice patients and caregivers often feel a range of emotions from loneliness to guilt to stress, depression, anger, and fear.
During this time, it is especially important to approach the holidays with realistic wishes and a focus on comfort. This allows patients and their families space to make lasting holiday memories in a place they call home surrounded by those they love.
Heart to Heart knows how important the holidays can be for families – especially those with loved ones approaching end of life. Here are a few ways families and hospice care can provide you and your loved one the gift of hope, peace, and support during what may be a unique and difficult holiday season.
Give the gift of Grace
One of the biggest things that families and friends can provide during the holidays is grace. Yearly traditions and schedules will fall by the wayside when a loved one is in hospice care, and that needs to be understood. Families may be spending more time with the patient, so having scaled down schedules and lower expectations can go a long way towards reliving stress on the family and the patient.
It is also important for the caregiver to remember that the hospice care team can provide Respite Care to provide a break so they can attend gatherings while the patient rests and relaxes. This is important for everyone involved to lower stress levels and offer some peace.
Holidays Should be Peaceful
Hospice care teams can also help instill some peace in the time leading up to the holidays. Patients and their families can use that time to speak with their hospice care team to outline goals and wishes for the season. Care teams, such as the ones with Heart to Heart, help guide conversations surrounding the holidays or, in some cases, if it may be a last holiday. They can tailor the patient’s care plan to support the patient and the family for openness, reconciliation, and comfort. It doesn’t have to be uncomfortable, and the team can make sure nothing is left unsaid.
This also speaks to compassion – an important thing for all holiday seasons but particularly when a loved one is in hospice care. Patients and families can be dealing with an elevated level of emotion, so being compassionate towards those struggling with terminal illness is crucial. For families this can look like offering companionship to caregivers, small thoughtful gifts, or delivering a meal. Hospice care teams can provide compassionate, practical support and care to patients and their caregivers such as pain and symptom management, spiritual needs, and grief support to help ease the emotional burden of end of life care during the holidays.
Hope for a Loving Holiday
The holidays already come with an inherent level of stress and anxiety, but with simple conversations with your hospice care teams like the ones with Heart to Heart, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Families, in coordination with the care team, can make sure caregivers and patients approach the holidays with a plan that helps everyone feel loved, supported, and included. No one wants to feel left out over the holidays, so making sure families and caregivers get time to celebrate in the way they wish is the goal of Heart of Heart during the holidays.
