If you are already receiving hospice care, your team can help you prepare.You will need the staff to provide support and assistance. If you reside in a care facility, discuss your wishes with the staff and nursing director.

Finalize your business and financial affairs, make funeral and memorial plans, and gather your family members to share memories and say your good-byes.Be prepared that some members of your friend or family circle may not be supportive of this decision. Talk with friends and family members who might care for you during this process early about your wishes and why you may want to take this course.Have your physician sign orders to withhold life-sustaining therapies and all resuscitation efforts. Complete an advance directive, stating in writing that VSED is your wish.Discuss all your medications and ask if a sedative or pain medication will be available to keep you comfortable. Talk with your physician to let them know of your plans.It’s not something that can or should be started the day it is first discussed. This choice is also commonly accepted in the medical community. Supreme Court has affirmed the right of a competent individual to refuse medical therapies, which includes food and fluids. One of the advantages of this decision is that you may change your mind at any time and resume eating and drinking. This is an option for people with terminal or life-limiting diseases who feel that with VSED their dying will not be prolonged. To voluntarily stop eating and drinking means to refuse all food and liquids, including those taken through a feeding tube, with the understanding that doing so will hasten death. Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) Rather, they require working with your healthcare team and loved ones. Additional assistance: Some individual hospice agencies might also provide additional services through volunteer and/or charity programs.Whether or not your state has a death with dignity statute, you have a number of options available to hasten your death.Therapists: If appropriate, hospice might provide a physical, occupational and/or speech-language therapist.Respite care: This form of temporary, short-term assistance can help alleviate or avoid caregiver burnout and stress.These supplies might include, for example, a hospital bed, a wheelchair, and oxygen, as well as adult diapers, bandages, and latex gloves. Medical equipment: Hospice provides the equipment necessary to provide a safe, comfortable, caring environment in the patient's home.Medication: Hospice typically covers all medications related to the hospice diagnosis and those intended to control or alleviate pain and symptoms.Home-health aide: These aides can help patients with their personal care and typically visit two to three times per week.Counseling services: Hospice patients and/or their loved ones might need dietary services, as appropriate pastoral or spiritual support and bereavement counseling for family and caregivers after the patient's death.Medical social services: Patients are assigned a social worker to assist them with their emotional and/or social needs.Physician participation: A hospice patient's regular physician often provides care, in cooperation with a hospice medical director.Hospice patients and their caregivers can also access an on-call nurse 24 hours per day.

Nursing services: A hospice patient is assigned a case manager nurse, who typically visits one to three days a week.

Does hospice care hasten death