Metastatic Breast Cancer & Hospice
When breast cancer has metastasized, treatment options become more limited or stop working altogether. At this time, patients with metastatic breast cancer may decide to turn their focus from treatment to comfort and quality of life. Hospice helps support these goals.
What is hospice care?
Hospice care is designed to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of terminally ill patients. It supplements care provided by family caregivers.
A team of hospice care experts including nurses, hospice aides, social workers, chaplains, volunteers, and bereavement coordinators will visit the patient and their family under the direction of the hospice medical care.
Necessary medical equipment, medical supplies and medication related to the patient’s terminal diagnosis is provided at no cost to the patient or family, making it easier for the patient to continue to live at home. Hospice can be provided wherever a patient with metastatic breast cancer is living, including their home, a long-term-care facility, or another residence.
When is it time for hospice?
Too often, patients and families wait to start hospice care until a patient’s final days or weeks. While hospice care is still beneficial at this time, patients are actually eligible to receive all the benefits and support of hospice care much earlier.
Patients become eligible to receive hospice care if they are expected to live six months or less if their illness follows its typical trajectory. Once a patient with metastatic breast cancer decides to stop treatment, they can meet with the hospice team to assess their eligibility. If the patient meets hospice criteria, care can begin right away.
What are the benefits of hospice?
Patients and families are often unaware of just how much support is available with hospice care. In addition to meeting medical and physical care needs, hospice care helps improve quality of life by addressing the patient’s emotional and spiritual concerns, as well.
For cancer patients specifically, Crossroads offers CancerLink – a cancer care program designed to meet the disease management needs of patients on hospice for cancer. This program focuses on the challenges of managing a cancer diagnosis and providing individualized care based on the specific patient and that diagnosis to help enrich their end-of-life experience. Crossroads has specialized staff trained to help these patients and their families deal with all aspects of care throughout the process.
Social workers can work with families to access additional resources and support. They can even help advise on funeral arrangements. At Crossroads Hospice & Palliative Care, our social workers support patient goals by planning a Gift of a Day where they can enjoy one perfect day doing something they love or always wanted to try. Volunteers work with patients to create a Life Journal, a beautiful hardcover book with photos and stories from the patient’s life.
For our Veteran patients, chaplains plan a Veteran Recognition Ceremony to commemorate the sacrifices they made in service of our country.
Together, the team works to ensure the patient’s goals are met, while managing symptoms to keep them comfortable so they can spend quality time with their family. As the patient’s needs increase, our team visits more frequently. Once our team recognizes the signs that death is approaching, a member of our team will activate our Evenmore Care program, remaining bedside to support the patient and their family through their final hours.
When someone with metastatic breast cancer is considering a change to a care plan, it is important that patients and healthcare providers have an honest conversation about goals of care, quality of life concerns, and personal preferences.
To learn more about Crossroads supports metastatic breast cancer patients, please call 1-888-564-3405.
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