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There’s No Place Like Home

Posted on January 29, 2021July 7, 2021 by ViaQuest

6 Ways ViaQuest Hospice Program Keep You Out of the Hospital

No one is ever enthusiastic about the idea of going to the hospital. But in the era of COVID-19, a trip to the hospital has potential to cause more than just inconvenience – especially for people with COPD or CHF.

A trip to the hospital has always carried some risk of infection, and that risk has increased considerably due to the prevalence of COVID-19. Staying out of the hospital means staying away from an area with higher CHF and COPD COVID risk, and with the ViaQuest Hospice, you need not miss out on any essential services.

“Say a patient goes to the hospital for an exacerbation. The patient will be tested for COVID, likely due to them complaining of cough and shortness of breath,” says Hannah Cunningham, respiratory therapist for ViaQuest. “COVID comes out negative, but exacerbation is bad enough that the patient needs admitted. As much as most of us like to think the hospital is the most sterile place to be, unfortunately, that is not always the case.”

There’s no need to delay hospital visits for things such as blood work, testing or rehab when those things come directly to you. On top of that, the ViaQuest Hospice is covered by Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance, so there’s no worrying about costly tests or ambulance rides.

It’s Available Whenever You Need it

The hospital never closes for the night, and neither does our home health care for COPD patients. A commitment to 24/7 on-call nursing services means that, no matter when you feel an exacerbation or other complication coming on, you can get the medical assistance you need.

Everything Is Tailored to Your Needs

The ViaQuest team works closely with patients who qualify, as well as their families and primary physicians, to devise an individualized COPD home care plan. Physicians, nurses, home health aides, social workers, therapists, chaplains and volunteers all contribute to your care, creating a dedicated support system meant to keep you healthy at home.

“I try to make each experience individualized to the patient,” Cunningham says. “I look at their medication regimen and daily routine, and offer recommendations to help with their breathing. This gives a more personal touch, and I can spend as much time with them as needed, versus at the hospital where it is busy and the wait may be hours.”

It Has Everything You Might Need in a Physical Hospital

Advances in technology make it possible for the ViaQuest Hospice to bring all the relevant resources directly to you. In addition to standard supplies, the program can also bring medication and equipment to relieve an exacerbation. Equipment available includes:

Oxygen
Oxygen supplies
Nebulizers
Nebulizer supplies
CPAP
BIPAP
Adaptive devices such as walkers, shower chairs and hospital beds

It Keeps Stress Levels Down

The prospect of going to the hospital for an exacerbation can trigger stress and anxiety – and stress and anxiety can trigger, or worsen, an exacerbation. ViaQuest Hospice breaks the cycle by removing that risky trip from the equation. Our team can also help patients understand new symptoms, helping them better decide what warrants further care or treatment. And it isn’t just patients who benefit; family members and caregivers have less to fret about, too, knowing that support is on the schedule or just one call away.

“It also helps keep the patient indoors during extreme cold and hot weather conditions that can trigger an exacerbation,” Cunningham says.

It Helps You Get Proactive

Most people with COPD, CHF or similar conditions know the importance of breathing techniques to help regulate symptoms. As part of our customized care plans, the our team will teach exercises that make sense for you specifically, including breathing treatments and coughing exercises.

Small Changes Add Up

In addition to social workers and medical professionals, the ViaQuest employs home health aides who can help with household tasks that prove difficult or dangerous for patients. That means small meal preparation, personal hygiene and light cleaning – including cleaning of equipment such as nebulizers, cannulas, oxygen concentrators and beyond. That keeps the equipment in optimal condition, which lowers the chances of problems down the road.

Stay Safe at Home with ViaQuest Hospice

Our services provide a means for COPD and CHF patients, as well as individuals with other illnesses, to access health resources and services without having to make a trip to the brick-and-mortar hospital. If you think this service would make a positive difference in your life, reach out to us today to learn more about signing up for it.

How to Care for A Loved One with Dementia or Alzheimer’s

Posted on September 17, 2018 by ViaQuest

September is World Alzheimer’s Month. Join us as we educate, raise awareness, and put an end to the stigma surrounding dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Getting a diagnosis of early-stage dementia or Alzheimer’s disease can be dismaying at first; not only does it affect those diagnosed with this degenerative disease, it affects friends, family members, and caretakers as well. However, this doesn’t have to be a debilitating diagnosis. With the right education and preparation, you and your loved ones can learn how to take control and deal with the symptoms of both Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Educate yourself on Alzheimer’s and Dementia. The first and most important step you can do after receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is learn about the symptoms, effects, and the best methods of treatment and care. There are even support groups to remind you that there is always someone going through the same challenges you are.
Keep things simple. Ask and say one thing at a time in a soft, calming voice. Keep your loved one in the conversation, but try not to overwhelm them with questions or plans.
Establish a daily routine so they will know what to expect. Plan simple activities, recognizing their current mental and physical capabilities. Let your loved one get used to the daily routine and try not to switch it up too often.
Balance independence and teamwork. Focus on your loved one’s strengths and let them do the things that they are still able to do, but prompt them on appointments and financial reminders.
Encourage physical activity. Getting exercise is important for both physical and mental health. Incorporate a physical activity that your loved one enjoys, whether it’s a light walk or gardening. Always have water available and be on the lookout for signs of exhaustion.
Be patient, flexible and never show frustration. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed or discouraged, take a deep breath, count to ten, or leave the room for a moment if it’s safe.
Encourage engagement with others. Have friends and family come visit and interact with your loved one. Include them in the conversation, address them by name, and ask them simple questions to exercise their communication skills.
Recognize and be able to understand their emotions. Learn to acknowledge when they are scared, confused, or angry. In these situations, be able to assure safety, distract, or help as much as the situation allows.
Take care of yourself. This is just as important as taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer’s, but oftentimes gets ignored. If you find yourself getting tired, stressed, or overwhelmed, set aside time to relax, take care of yourself, and talk to someone about how you’re feeling.

While there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, it is also not a death sentence. Patients can live for a long time after being diagnosed, so it’s important to learn how to cope with the symptoms and to enhance the quality of life. While you may feel helpless after a loved one has been diagnosed, ultimately, all the patient needs is a loving, consistent, and devoted caregiver who best understands their needs. That is truly the best gift you can give them.

For more questions on Alzheimer’s disease, or if you think in-home care is a good option for your loved one suffering from AD, call ViaQuest at (855) 289-1722.

The Benefits of Hospice Care

Posted on October 10, 2018 by ViaQuest

Hospice is a topic we tend to avoid discussing. For many, hospice emotes daunting feelings about death and loved ones dying. For others, it’s viewed as a “last surrender” and that the patient has given up on life. These misconceptions can not only lead to people not fully understanding the benefits of hospice care, but to patients being deprived freedom of choice in their final months and one of the most impactful care options available.

Here, we will take a look at what exactly hospice care does, and why it can be a good decision for your loved one living with serious illness.

It offers the patient dignity. With hospice, patients can choose to focus on quality of life, allowing them to regain a sense of control and dignity. Care is about how you choose to live and centered on allowing you to live more fully in the time that remains.
It takes place in a familiar environment. Hospice care can be offered wherever the patient lives or feels the most comfortable, whether it’s their own home, assisted living, or a nursing facility. Most patients feel more comfortable in their own home rather than in an unfamiliar hospital. In fact, ViaQuest helps reduce re-hospitalizations, keeping you home where you want to be.
It is easier on finances. Hospice care is almost always fully covered by Medicare or Medicaid insurances, lessening the financial burden of overwhelming hospital bills.
It provides options for family and friends, not just the patient. Hospice’s extra layer of support enables family members to resume their role of wife, mother, daughter, husband or son again by our ability to ‘share the care’. Many ViaQuest patients have told us our hospice care allowed them to regain precious time with their loved ones.
It offers comprehensive care and support 24/7. One of the best things about hospice is that care is available when you need it – 24/7. There are no more frantic late night trips to the ER. ViaQuest is available by phone 24/7 with on-call nurses available during a crisis.
There is no compromise in the quality of medical care. Even though hospice often takes place outside of a hospital, patients are still provided with all the necessary medication and equipment to ensure the patient’s final months are pain and symptom-free. In fact, studies show that patients on hospice have better quality of life and live longer than those who did not choose hospice care.
It gives the patient control and empowerment. Allowing a patient to choose how and where they will spend their final months can actually improve the quality of life. They no longer feel victim to their own pain and symptoms, and can enjoy their final months.
It provides counseling and bereavement care. ViaQuest Hospice has a team of social workers, chaplains, and grief counselors to guide both the patient and their loved ones through this difficult transition. ViaQuest Hospice also offers grief counseling and assistance in getting your loved one’s affairs in order after they pass.
It focuses on physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. While hospice nurses are available to keep your loved one pain and symptom-free, chaplains assist in helping the patient and family come to terms with their illness and offer any spiritual support the patient and family request.

Choosing hospice does not mean you’re giving up hope—it just means a different kind of hope. A hope that your loved one can choose how to spend their final months, a hope that they will live as well as they can for as long as they can, and be surrounded by people who love them. ViaQuest Hospice can provide you with tools and support to make the decision and transition simple, peaceful, and full of hope.

If you have questions about hospice care, need support dealing with an illness, or feel it is time to focus on quality of life, call us at (855) 289-1722. We have a team of caring professionals on-call, ready to help.

ViaQuest Offers Specialized Care For Veterans

Posted on November 9, 2018 by ViaQuest

In recognition of November being National Hospice Month as well as November 11 being Veterans Day, it is a great time to talk about serving the needs of our veteran population.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are an estimated 22 million veterans living in the United States. Veterans make up one-fourth of all deaths today; that’s 617,000 per year.

Veterans often carry experiences from their service that present unique challenges at end of life. For some veterans, the psychological effects of combat can remain dormant for years, only to re-emerge when they are facing their own mortality. Veterans at end of life often experience anxiety, depression, traumatic grief and PTSD. Veterans can also face higher risk for a variety of diseases including: cancer, heart disease, respiratory illness, kidney disease, type 2 diabetes and more.

Facing end of life for many veterans also means the resurfacing of troubling memories – coming to terms with what they did, lived through and saw during combat. Many also have ‘survivors guilt’ about having survived when their buddies did not.

As a veteran-owned company, ViaQuest uniquely understands veterans and what they experience at the end of life. The collective knowledge of our team, many of whom are veterans themselves, enables our veteran patients to forge a deep connection with us. They are not burdened by having to explain their experiences. Our empathy, understanding and related connections make our hospice team and veteran volunteers sensitive to the special needs of veterans as they face end of life.

ViaQuest Hospice offers specialized hospice services for veterans and their families including: relief of the pain and symptoms of chronic illness, comfort, spiritual solace if desired, help with psychosocial needs and education, resources and support for family caregivers.

ViaQuest is also an active part of the We Honor Veterans Program, and works to publicly acknowledge the military service and sacrifices made by veterans and their families during pinning ceremonies. ViaQuest offers over 50 pinning ceremonies a year in our service areas honoring and thanking them for their service to our nation.

By recognizing the unique needs of veterans living with advanced illness, ViaQuest Hospice is able to guide these men and women toward a more peaceful and enriched end of life experience.

We hope to honor these incredible, brave individuals who served our country by improving their quality of living as they face end of life.

This Year, Give the Gift of ViaQuest

Posted on December 14, 2018 by ViaQuest

It’s never easy to come to terms with having a parent or loved one with an advanced illness, especially during the holiday season. It may be hard to feel festive and merry when a loved one is approaching end-of-life. You and your loved one’s doctor may have even discussed hospice care, but maybe you’re consciously postponing that hard conversation until after the holidays. We just want to let Mom enjoy the holidays without the weight of thinking about hospice on her mind…We don’t want to make things awkward when the family visits.

As a caregiver and decision maker, it’s important to know when the right time for hospice is. And even though it may not seem like it, before and during the holidays can be a good time. Putting your loved one in hospice during the holidays can provide an additional layer of comfort, care, and support for both the patient and family. It allows some of the weight to be lifted off the family caregivers so you can cherish the holiday season with your loved one.

ViaQuest Hospice provides an extra layer of support that enables family members to resume their role of wife, mother, daughter, husband or son by our ability to ‘share the care’, even during the holiday season. Our team will work with your loved one’s physician to create a personalized and comprehensive care plan that focuses on pain, symptom management and patient comfort, allowing them to fully enjoy the holiday season. ViaQuest Hospice also offers a specialized team of physicians, nurses, and volunteers that are available 24/7 to take the burden off of family caregivers.

The holidays are a time for family, togetherness, and hope, and ViaQuest Hospice can provide all the resources necessary to make your loved one feel hopeful, comfortable, and surrounded by the people they love. It is important to realize that hospice is focused on improving quality of life and allowing time to be spent more joyfully with those you love. So, instead of avoiding the hospice conversation, consider giving the gift of ViaQuest this holiday season.

After all, there’s no place like home for the holidays.

For more information on ViaQuest Hospice, call our compassionate team at 855-289-1722.

Hospice for Alzheimer’s Patients

Posted on June 8, 2021 by ViaQuest

hospice alzheimers

When is it time to look into hospice care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s?

Different from other terminal diseases, Alzheimer’s disease is defined by uncertainty. It should be no surprise, then, that figuring out when and how to seek additional help for a loved one with Alzheimer’s is a difficult task.

Many people don’t realize that hospice is an option for the care and comfort of individuals with Alzheimer’s – and many more don’t realize it’s an option until their loved one’s disease progresses to late stages. Hospice care may be more closely associated with diseases such as cancer and heart or lung disease in our culture, but it’s appropriate for anyone with a terminal diagnosis. And make no mistake: Alzheimer’s is a terminal disease, even if it’s extremely tough for medical professionals to gauge how long a person who has it might live.

That raises a question, though: If a loved one has Alzheimer’s or dementia, when is it time to look into hospice?

Reading the Signs & Symptoms

One of the measurement systems often used by hospice services is the Reisberg Functional Assessment Staging (FAST) scale, which tracks the progression of dementia through 16 items across seven stages. Among the symptoms that appear on the scale are:

Inability to walk, dress, bathe or use the bathroom without assistance
Incontinence
Difficulty speaking more than a few intelligible words

Associated Conditions

Hospice programs also keep track of patient comorbidities to determine eligibility. Some of the comorbidities most often associated with Alzheimer’s disease are:

Aspiration pneumonia
Pyelonephritis (kidney infection)
Urinary tract infection
Sepsis (blood poisoning, sometimes called septicemia)
Bedsores (sometimes referred to as pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers)
Fever after use of antibiotics
Inability to maintain fluids or caloric intake to sustain life

Additional Difficulties Faced by Patients

Other possible signs of Alzheimer’s – or worsening of Alzheimer’s – include eating challenges. These may include:

Difficulty swallowing
Difficulty coughing up fluid from the lungs
Refusal to eat or drink, or forgetting to eat or drink
Malnutrition

Beyond that, it can be helpful to compare the person’s behavior to their behavior earlier in life. You may notice frequently elevated levels of stress and anxiety, difficulty sleeping or disruptive behavior. Possible indicators of worsening condition include falls, uncontrolled pain, psychosocial issues and hypotension.

Getting the Process Started

Hospice care is generally defined as comfort-focused treatment for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live. But life expectancy for patients with Alzheimer’s – as well as similar dementing conditions, including frontotemporal dementia, Lewy Body dementia and vascular dementia – is very difficult to pinpoint. Making Alzheimer’s hospice criteria even more complicated, the disease impairs the patient’s ability to express themself, so they may not be able to adequately communicate regarding pain, discomfort and needs.

With anything regarding Alzheimer’s, the earlier a matter can be addressed, the better. It’s unfortunately common for people to not intervene in a loved one’s cognitive decline until very late, but it’s never too early to start formulating a plan.

Hospice Consults

Scheduling a hospice consult – in conjunction, if possible, with their primary care doctor – can help provide a clearer idea of what care a loved one may need and when it might make sense to begin hospice services. Beyond that, it’s a good idea to talk about your loved one’s wishes while they can more easily express them, including which medical treatments they do and don’t want, and also fill out legal documents while they can better answer questions.

If your loved one uses Medicare, make sure any hospice program you’re exploring is Medicare-certified.

Why Choose Hospice Care for Alzheimer’s Disease?

There may be no known cure for Alzheimer’s, but hospice care can make the life of the patient decidedly more comfortably – in fact, Alzheimer’s patients who are in hospice care often live longer than patients who aren’t. A quality hospice program for Alzheimer’s will include medical care, end-of-life counseling, respite care for caregivers and grief support, among other things.

A person with Alzheimer’s disease is also likely to spend less time in the hospital while receiving hospice care – a definite positive, as frequent hospitalization can lead to delirium for Alzheimer’s patients. Dehydration, UTIs and aspiration pneumonia are more common in individuals with Alzheimer’s and are more likely to lead to hospitalization.

Hospitalization may be able to resolve individual issues, but the patient’s not going to get any better, and if those issues can be resolved at home or in a hospice care facility, so much the better. As an added benefit, hospice care makes it easier for family members to keep apprised of their loved one’s condition, and easier for medical professionals to spot and deal with infections.

Find Out More About Hospice Care

If you have a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease and are wondering if hospice care is a good option, reach out to us today at ViaQuest. Our expansive hospice program tailors care to each patient, including those with Alzheimer’s or dementia. Take our hospice quiz or contact us today to learn more about eligibility.