There are a lot of variables that can come into play when your senior is considering hospice. Determining whether now is the right time might come down to examining just one or multiple of these variables to ensure that you’re covering all the right ground.

There’s Not a Cure for Your Senior’s Health Issues

When curative treatments aren’t having any sort of positive result for your elderly family member, she may opt to stop them. This is something that she and her doctor may have discussed more than once. It’s also likely something that she’s talked to you about so that you as her caregiver can help her to find another option.

Your Senior’s Quality of Life Has Diminished Greatly

Your elderly family member’s life is likely very different now than it might have been even a few months ago. When her quality of life diminishes to a great extent, then it might not make sense any longer for her to make trips to the hospital and to her doctor’s office. She may find that the limitations facing her now are far more than she wants to cope with alone.

Her Doctor Has Recommended Hospice

The biggest recommendation can come from your senior’s doctor directly. In fact, that’s where you need to start if you and your elderly family member are starting to investigate hospice elder care options that are available to her and that might meet her needs. Make sure that you ask her doctor what hospice is going to mean for your senior and how it can help her to meet her needs.

Talk to Your Senior about How She Feels

You also need to know how your elderly family member feels about this situation. It’s one that directly affects her and making the move to hospice elder care can open up more solutions for managing her comfort. It’s crucial to make sure that this is a step she’s ready to take. She’s never locked into hospice, but she does need to be ready for the shift in the types of care that she’s going to receive.

The bottom line is that there’s not a specific right or wrong time for your elderly family member to make the move to hospice elder care. There are so many different contributing factors involved in this choice and a great deal of the decision itself goes back to what your senior wants.

If you or an aging parent is considering hospice elder care in West Chester, PA, please contact the caring staff at Serenity Hospice today. Call (215) 867-5405.