Just a couple hospice pt/cancer treatment questions

[Epi-do]

I admit that my knowledge of the ins and outs of hospice care is relatively limited. (my experience with my FIL being in hospice, limited training at work) Because of this, I have a couple questions I was hoping someone could answer. I also plan on doing some searching on my own to get some answers, but thought this would be a good place to start.

1. I know that palliative/hospice care is comfort care for end of life patients. I always thought upon entering this type of care, the pt obtains a DNR order. Is this not always true?

2. I have always been told that cancer patients entering hospice are no longer receiving treatments for said cancer. If this is true, what is "palliative chemotherapy"?

I recently transported a patient that was supposedly in hospice care, but was a full code, and had received palliative chemo about a week ago.

 

[Sasha]

Its not true. You dont have to have a DNR to be hospice.

Sent from LuLu using Tapatalk

 

[Harvey]

I was instructed as soon as cpr is started the patient is no longer a hospice patient.

 

[Addicted2Narcan]

Most likely hospice laws and regulations are going to vary from state to state, perhaps even facility to facility. I think the important thing to remember is that these patients are at the end of their earthly lives. Show them as much compassion and respect as you can without breaking protocol.

 

[mcdonl]

Palliative Chemotherapy would almost be like comfort drugs. Depending on the cancer the level of toxicity varies. So, if the patient for instance has lukemia, the treatment is pretty fierce... cells are extracted from the marrow so that after chemo kills all of the cancer cells (And other wbc's) the marrow can be re-injected to re-establish growth. In addition to this, the Blood Brain Barrier (Remember that thing?) prevents most chemo therapy from crossing so there needs to be chemo injected directly into the CSF via a spinal....

So, given that example a light course of chemo may be given to slow the process and allow the family to get affairs in order. It seems like an odd thing to do, but cancer is not a disease of the old and it often strikes in the prime of your life so palliative care means a lot.