Mountain Valley Hospice.

Nursing Services

A Nurse makes home visits to assess the patient's condition and teach care of the patient, especially management of symptoms such as pain, nausea, vomiting, and constipation. How often the nurse visits depends on the patient's condition and the physician's orders. The Nurse is in regular contact with the patient's physician and can help arrange for special equipment and supplies.

A 24-hour emergency on-call service is provided for problems or questions regarding the patient's condition that cannot wait until the regular office hours.

Social Work Services

Medical social workers are available to help with emotional support. The social worker visits every family initially to help determine strengths and needs. A plan is developed which can include coordination of resources, problem solving, personal adjustment counseling, family counseling, and referral to other agencies for financial and other help.

Home Health Aides

The aides visit the home at regular intervals to give baths, shampoos, to help make/change the bed, and other homemaker services to maintain cleanliness of patient area, and to provide other types of personal care.

Chaplain Services

As part of our holistic care, Hospice provides spiritual support for patients and families when requested by the family. Coping with a life-threatening illness may create questions concerning faith, meaning, and hope. Many patients and families find it helpful to talk with our chaplains about religious or spiritual issues as they strive to cope with a life-limiting illness. The following questions and answers will assist you in understanding the spiritual care services offered by Hospice and how to access them. Please let us know how our chaplains can be of service to you.

Support by Volunteers

Volunteers are available to assist the rest of the Hospice team providing care to the patient and family. If desired, a specially trained volunteer will be assigned to provide such services as companionship, respite for family members (usually once a week), and on occasional help with transportation and errands. Volunteers are good listeners and are available to offer emotional support. In addition, volunteers with special skills (such as lawyers and chaplains) may be available for advice.

Patient/Family volunteers may be requested to provide the following:

Home Visits

Patient Sitting

Errand Running

Telephone Support

Listening

Bereavement (Grief Support)

Hospice provides support to family members during the crucial year of transition following death. Support groups meet periodically, and each family may be helped by a follow- up volunteer who has received special training in helping families cope with their loss.

A special kind of care for dying people, their families and their caregivers that:

Treats the physical needs of the patient, and their emotional and spiritual needs.

Takes place in the patient's home, or in a home-like setting.

Concentrates on making the patient as free of pain and as comfortable as they want to be so they can make the most of the time that remains to them.

Considers helping family members an essential part of its mission.

Believes the quality of life to be as important as the length of life.

More than a million patients and their families have utilized the services of hospice (pronounced "HOS-pis").

Some 60 percent of all hospice patients have cancer, and many of the rest have either heart disease or AIDS. However, regardless of a patient's conditions- or age- hospices open their doors and their hearts to all terminally ill persons.

Many surviving family members say, "I do not know what I would have done without hospice." And many credit it with helping to make their final days with their loved ones warm and memorable.

Palliative Care

Palliative, also known as comfort, care is treatment that enhances comfort and improves the quality of an individual’s life during the last phase of life. No specific therapy is excluded from consideration. The test of palliative care lies in the agreement between the individual, physician(s), primary caregiver, and the hospice team that the expected outcome is relief from distressing symptoms, the easing of pain, and/or enhancing the quality of life. The decision to intervene with active palliative care is based on an ability to meet stated goals rather than affect the underlying disease. An individual’s needs must continue to be assessed and all treatment options explored and evaluated in the context of the individual’s values and symptoms. The individual’s choices and decisions regarding care are paramount and must be followed.

Transitions Program

"The Transitions program gives me peace of mind. I know there is someone I can talk with about what I am going through.”

The Transitions program is an integral part of the mission of Mountain Valley Hospice and Palliative Care: “To improve the quality of life for persons with a limited life expectancy and their families”. Transitions is designed to work with people “where they are” in the treatment or disease process. Transitions is not limited to the last 6 months of life.

Transitions is a program of support for people who have life limiting illnesses. It can be provided to those who remain hopeful for a cure and those who may be receiving curative care and treatment. Transitions can be provided in addition to other programs of care that a person is receiving and can be provided in any place of residence. Transitions is not limited to the last six months of life.

When one has been diagnosed with a serious illness, life becomes confusing and very stressful. Transitions is designed to provide case management and volunteer support alone or in addition to other care programs. Transitions case managers and specially trained Transitions volunteers will be able to:

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