What Does Going Home With Comfort Care Mean?

Going home with comfort care means returning home and receiving care to control symptoms, alleviate pain and improve quality of life. Often part of palliative or hospice care, comfort care moves away from curative therapies, allowing seniors to remain in a familiar environment and close to their loved ones.

Around 65% of American adults wish to receive care at home, even when affected by a serious illness. Comfort care lets them do just that. Doctors often use "comfort care only" and "comfort care measures" to describe end-of-life care. However, while comfort care can refer to support given during someone’s final days, weeks or months of life, it also describes the comfort-focused therapies seniors receive when transitioning from curative treatments.

Although seniors may receive less intensive curative treatment during comfort care, this care type focuses on relieving pain and controlling symptoms, making the individual more comfortable, thereby helping improve their quality of life. Receiving comfort care at home allows seniors to remain in familiar, relaxed and comfortable surroundings. It lets them spend valuable time with family and friends without the distractions of intrusive medical treatment.

People often confuse comfort care and hospice care, using the terms interchangeably. Although the two typically work hand-in-hand, with comfort care often comprising a part of hospice care, the latter encompasses much more. While comfort care manages pain and other symptoms to enhance the quality of life, hospice care focuses on the whole person when treatment and a cure for a serious or terminal condition no longer remain viable options.

Hospice care involves a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, home health aides and social workers delivering medical care and emotional, spiritual and social support tailored to the needs and wishes of the individual and their family. As hospice care often occurs during the final period of someone's life, it also incorporates bereavement support for surviving family and friends.

People often erroneously use the terms "comfort care" and "palliative care" interchangeably. Although comfort care can form part of palliative care, the two care types differ.

Seniors can receive palliative care at any stage of a serious illness. They don't necessarily have to suffer a terminal disease with no possibility of a cure. Palliative care provides seniors with specialized medical care aimed at alleviating their pain and discomfort while delivering curative care and medical treatments designed to cure their condition.