Comfort Care Elderly Home

Many people have misconceptions about the term “comfort care,” thinking it’s a variation on hospice care. However, experts say this isn’t the case. For starters, unlike hospice care, comfort care does not mean patients have less than six months to live and/or extremely poor prognosis. Nor does it mean they’ve decided to end all medical treatment.

The position that comfort care is actually a type of medical care is reiterated by  Dr. Vyjayanthi “VJ” Periyakoil, an associate professor of medicine at the Stanford University Medical Center. “In the home [of someone who has chosen comfort care] there are often the same types of professionals that you see in a hospital. This could be a primary care physician doing home visits, a palliative care doctor, a respiratory therapist, a physical therapist, a psychologist, nurses and social workers. Any discipline you see in hospital, you’ll see in the comfort care approach outside it.