Visiting relatives in hospice care can be comforting, but it can also be sad. Visitors may not be ready to say goodbye. The situation becomes more complicated when visitors are memory-impaired and may have trouble understanding what’s happening. Should you bring memory-impaired visitors to visit their relatives in hospice care? The team at Suncrest Home Health and Hospice of Austin has guidance for you about when to bring memory-impaired visitors to visit relatives in hospice.
The Causes of Memory Impairment
There are many diseases that can impact memory. One of the most commonly known is Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s impacts its victims in a wide variety of different ways, so each case must be evaluated individually.
Dementia that is not caused by Alzheimer’s is also fairly common. Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease can also eventually cause dementia.
With regard to visiting relatives in hospice, what is more important than what caused your relative’s dementia is in what ways it has impacted them.
The Effects of Memory Impairment
Those managing care for hospice patients may have to wrestle with the wisdom of bringing certain relatives to visit. For instance, you may want to bring the hospice patient’s husband or wife, brother or sister, mother or father to visit them. But if any of these relatives is memory-impaired, it could impact the success of the visit.
Some memory-impaired individuals remain happy and upbeat, even though they may not know where they are or even who they are any longer. However, many others unsurprisingly are fearful, sad, angry and unpredictable.
When to Skip Hospice Visits
One example of a time you may want to limit a relative’s visit to hospice is when these visits leave either the relative or the hospice patient agitated and upset. For instance, if the visitor does not remember the patient, this could be upsetting for the patient. Or if the visitor remembers the patient when they were young and healthy and becomes upset and tearful every time they visit because they are surprised to see them aged and ill, this is not helpful to the patient or the visitor.
As the caring relative of both the patient and their relatives, you want to do the right thing for everyone involved. It makes sense you want the visitor to see the patient in their last days, but the circumstances might make this unadvisable.
Advice from Suncrest of Austin
This can be a difficult choice to make, and you might need help. The hospice nurses, social workers and therapists at Suncrest Home Health and Hospice of Austin can talk to you about your situation and offer you individual advice for your personal situation.
We’re here to help you through this difficult time, and you can rely on our experience and compassionate services to help you make decisions about your relative in hospice and their visitors.
