Plus What Type of Services each Care Option Offers

What is the Difference Between Hospice and In-Home Healthcare?

January 19 2021

What Type of Treatments Can I Receive with In-Home Healthcare?

In-home healthcare agencies often have the ability to care for you just as a facility would, though it does vary from one agency to the next. This means that in-home care agencies often have portable versions of equipment that you would often find in long-term care facilities or even hospitals, such as portable X-Ray machines. It is always best to check with an in-home healthcare agency to ensure they meet your personal needs.

General services that in-home healthcare agencies offer include:

• Administration of prescription medications or shots
• Physical and occupational therapy
• Speech therapy
• Medical tests
• Monitoring of health status
• Wound care

Some other services offered by home healthcare agencies may include help with preparing and eating meals; help with daily living activities such as getting dressed, bathing and grooming; help with tasks around the home such as laundry or light dusting; and companion care. This type of care is often performed by home health aides.

Is In-Home Healthcare Different from In-Home Care?

Yes! In-home care does not include any type of healthcare and is strictly companionship care, help with daily living tasks, help with chores and sometimes transportation. While many in-home healthcare agencies offer options such as help with daily living tasks and companionship, they also offer healthcare management and treatment.

What is Hospice?

Hospice is often referred to as end of life care. When a patient is admitted into hospice care, all curative and life-prolonging treatments are stopped. Hospice care is for those who are expected to have about six months or less to live and those who wish to focus not on prolonging their life, but on the quality of the time they have left. In other words, hospice is comfort care.

What Is Comfort Care?

An interdisciplinary team of professionals work together to provide holistic care to hospice patients so that they may live out their final days in peace and comfort. This team includes medical professionals (who monitor general health and administer medications to ease pain), physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, social workers or counselors, home health aides (who help with tasks such as bathing) and spiritual advisors. Not only does this team of professionals help their patients feel more comfortable, they also offer respite care to family caregivers and grief counseling to the family of the patient.

What is the Difference Between Hospice and Palliative Care?

Many use the terms hospice and palliative interchangeably, however, they are not the same. Both hospice and palliative care focus on providing comfort to the patient. However, palliative care is done in conjunction with life-prolonging and curative treatments. Palliative care allows a patient to combat an illness while feeling more comfortable. Hospice only provides comfort care at the end of a person’s life. It should be noted that deciding to enter hospice is never a final decision. One can always choose to restart curative treatment at any time.

Conclusion

While hospice and home healthcare can both be received in a patient’s home, the main difference is that in-home healthcare offers life-prolonging and curative treatment while in-home hospice stops those treatments to offer only comfort care.

If you are looking for in-home healthcare or hospice services, All American Care is dedicated to providing the highest quality of home health, personal care and hospice services to our patients in our community. Each patient’s needs are carefully assessed and handled by our trustworthy and compassionate team.