Last Updated on June 19, 2024 by Frank Davis
For people who are facing end-of-life situations, hospice care is an effective way of relieving the pain and discomfort associated with their illness. It is usually considered as terminal, when a disease has progressed to the point where doctors have given the patient a life expectancy of less than 6 months. The person who may qualify for hospice care must be diagnosed with a prognosis of at least six months and be willing to give up curative treatments.
Is it possible for a hospice patient to recover from their condition following hospice care? It is possible in some cases for patients who have been receiving hospice care to recover. Generally, hospice patients’ illnesses go into remission as a result of their treatment, and as a consequence, their overall health improves. In order to ensure that a patient’s life expectancy does not decline further than six months, hospice doctors will need to monitor the patient regularly.
Identifying that the prognosis of a patient has changed beyond six months is not a process that takes place in a short time. As long as the disease is in remission, it is imperative that the doctor keep a regular check to make sure it is no longer progressing. Because of improvements in the patient’s health, a doctor will no longer be able to give them a 6-month prognosis, thus allowing them to be discharged as “no longer terminally ill.”
There were 6.3% of hospice patients who recovered or improved from hospice treatment in 2018, as reported by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. Approximately 104,000 patients are estimated to have improved and were discharged from hospice care. As a general rule, discharge plans for hospice patients are provided to them upon leaving hospice care. The discharge plan will often contain information about what will happen after you leave the hospice, as well as what type of care you will receive and who will administer it.
The patients who are in hospice may benefit from improved medication management, improved diets due to dietician interventions, and increased communication and physical interaction with others. It is not clear why hospice patients improve in the long run, but there are a few points that can be mentioned. One or more factors may play a role, or it may be a factor that is yet to be discovered.
Conclusion
It has been reported that hospice patients do recover and heal in some instances. Patients in this category are not considered terminally ill anymore, and are typically discharged from hospice care soon after their illness has gone into remission. Nevertheless, it is likely that it would be impossible to pinpoint precisely why those patients made a full recovery because a number of circumstances could have driven this process. We know that miracles can happen; as this blog post illustrates, they do happen every day. Occasionally, hospice patients recover from hospice care for reasons that are not well understood.
