End-of-life care options for people with Alzheimer’s

Caring for someone in the final stage of life is always hard. It may be even harder when the person has Alzheimer’s disease.

Palliative care and hospice services provide care for a very ill person to keep him or her as comfortable and as pain-free as possible. Palliative care provides comfort care, along with any medical treatments a person might be receiving for a life-threatening illness. When a person is near the end of life, hospice care gives family members needed support and help with their grief, both before and after the person with Alzheimer’s dies.

What else can you do as a caregiver? Try making connections through senses like hearing, touch, or sight to bring comfort to the person with Alzheimer’s disease. Being touched or massaged and listening to music, “white” noise, or sounds from nature seem to soothe some people and lessen their agitation.

Learn more about end-of-life care and Alzheimer’s disease.

Share this information with caregivers in your life:

Twitter: Hospice & palliative care can help keep a person w/ #Alz comfortable at the end of life. Learn how: http://bit.ly/2fFeWBA #HospiceMonth

Facebook: Caring for someone in the final stage of life is always hard. It may be even harder when the person has Alzheimer’s disease. You may need palliative care and hospice services to keep the person as comfortable and as pain-free as possible. For National Hospice and Palliative Care Month, learn more about these services in this tip sheet from the National Institute on Aging: http://bit.ly/2fFj7PD