Myth: You need family to help you if you are on hospice care.
You may be thinking that you cannot receive hospice care without your own team of family caregivers. While it is true that family members are usually taught to care for hospice patients at home, there are many cases in which this is not possible.
Patients who live alone or don’t have family or friends available to assist them are often able to stay at home on their own, or with some additional assistance from a home care agency or private duty nurses. If their needs become too great, their hospice care can then be provided at a nursing facility or an inpatient hospice center.
Simply explain your situation to the hospice care team and the appropriate care plan will be developed to ensure your comfort and quality of life.
Not everything you hear about hospice care is true.
Other biggest hospice myths
Hospice can’t even talk to you if you don’t have a referral.
Hospice can’t help you if you need “high-tech” care.
Hospice is for people who have no hope.
Hospice is for people who only have a few days to live.
Hospice is only for people who have accepted death.
Hospice is only for people with cancer.
Hospice just dopes people up until they die.
Hospice starves its patients at the end.
Once I am on hospice, I can never go off of it.