Seniors

End of Life Concerns

Making Your Wishes Known

Now available… Palliative Care at Strong Health Call 585-273-1154.

Whether you're facing your own death or the death of a loved one, the pain of separation and loss can be made more bearable if your friends and family understand your wishes. It’s always best to plan ahead. Having a plan in place also relieves your family of the burden of wondering what you wanted to be done.

In a hospital, making your wishes known ahead of time is often called “advanced directives.”

Advanced Directives—Consider Them Now

Advanced directives are documents that enable you to give directions about future medical care and designate another person who will make decisions for you if you're not able to make them for yourself. Three of the most important advanced directives are:

• The New York Health Care Proxy Form
• Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) Order
• A Living Will
• Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatments–Form 1, Form 2, Form 3

Terminal Care/Hospice

Hospice care is focused on quality of life issues for people terminally ill people. Its goal is to make their last months of life as positive as possible by surrounding them with empathetic, supportive people and by offering pain relief measures when needed. Hospice is sometimes called “palliative” care. Palliative care means pain relief and symptom control rather than treatment intended to cure a disease.

Click here for more details about hospice care, including information on how to pay for it and on local and national hospice support groups.

Palliative Care in Hospital

Strong Health’s Palliative Care occurs in the hospital and involves a mutli-disciplinary approach to pain management and end-of-life issues. The two basic differences between this service and hospice care is that it:

• Can include medical treatments, such as chemotherapy
• Is delivered in Strong Hospital.