Critical Condition

Although the health care industry has made a remarkable progress over the last few decades, there are still individuals with condition that cannot be cured. Even in the world of cancer people nowadays have more chances to live if they go through early screening and detect their condition in time. But one needs to keep in mind that there will always be patients whose condition will be discovered too late or there will always be conditions that progress too fast as to be treated. As a result, a great deal of attention in the medical world is being put into hospice care, or how to help patients diagnosed with incurable diseases to cope with their condition.

Terminally ill patients need more care than normal patients do and this has been widely recognized since the 1940s. The hospice movement brought along the recognition of the fact that terminally ill patients need to be healed and not treated. They need treatment to help them manage the pain but they also need words of comfort, friendship and kindness as to heal their souls and minds. Dr. Saunders was the pioneer of the hospice movement and she argued that terminally ill patients need to be guided through the different phases that they go through in their process of coping with the thought of death and dying.

In short, patients diagnosed with incurable diseases are expected to go through the so called five stages of grief, including denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The order in which patients experience these stages is unique and it may change from patient to patient. Some patient may skip one or more stages and others may remain stuck in one of them.

The insight brought by the hospice movement into the treatment of terminally ill patients is remarkable as it can improve the ways in which family and friends offer their support to their loved one.