Hospice: rehabilitation in reverse

Hospice care is about quality of life at a time when a person has an illness for which curative measures are no longer possible, and for which a physician has determined the patient has a life expectancy of about six months or less, a hospice program can support the process of death and dying in a compassionate way. A growing trend is to utilize physical therapy more frequently in hospice. Physical therapy has several vital roles in hospice care as follows: maximizing functional ability and comfort to enhance quality of life; assuring patient and care giver safety; helping people redesign their lives and life goals; providing support around physical, emotional and spiritual issues at the end of life. The purpose of this review is to provide 1) a description of hospice care, 2) an explanation of the roles of physical therapists in hospice care.