The liver helps digest food, filter toxins from the blood, and makes proteins to help blood clot. When your liver becomes damaged by a virus, chemicals or autoimmune disease, it will begin to scar. Once the damage becomes serious enough, the liver can no longer heal itself. This stage is called cirrhosis. A patient is determined to have liver failure when the liver is losing or has lost all function.
Patients are considered to have end-stage liver disease when they meet the following hospice criteria. If your loved one meets the liver disease hospice eligibility requirements, you should consider scheduling a hospice consultation.
Liver disease hospice eligibility criteria:
- Weakness and compromised ability perform activities of daily living (ADLs)
- Recurrent variceal hemorrhage
- Hepatic encephalopathy
- Prothrombin time prolonged more than five seconds over control or INR > 1.5
- Serum Albumin < 2.5 gm/dl
- Peritonitis
- Elevated creatinine and BUN with Oliguria <400 ml/day and urine sodium concentration <10 mEq/l
- Ascites
- Malnutrition
- Muscle wasting
- Asterixis
- May be awaiting liver transplant, but if organ is procured, the patient is no longer eligible
When to call hospice.
If a patient with liver disease meets the hospice criteria listed above or if they have received a terminal diagnosis of less than six months, please contact Crossroads Hospice for a free consultation -1-888-564-3405.