If you or a loved one is facing MS, ask your doctor for a referral to palliative care—the earlier the better. You can receive palliative care in the hospital, at an outpatient clinic and sometimes at home.
MS itself is rarely fatal, but complications may arise from severe MS, such as chest or bladder infections, or swallowing difficulties. The average life expectancy for people with MS is around 5 to 10 years lower than average, and this gap appears to be getting smaller all the time.
A person in the final stages of MS — or any other serious illness — can qualify for hospice care if they have a life expectancy of sixth months or less. Hospice focuses on relieving symptoms and enhancing comfort, so the patient can have the best possible quality of life each day.
Palliative care specialists treat people living with many disease types and chronic illnesses. These include cancer, cardiac disease such as congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), kidney failure, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and many more.
Hospice care helps patients with multiple sclerosis manage their physical symptoms, deal with emotional stress and provides other services, such as spiritual counseling. They also assist with activities of daily living, which often become more complicated during the final stages of multiple sclerosis.
If you reach the stage where your disabilities result in severe difficulties, which may not respond to treatment and so lead to life-threatening complications, you're considered to have end stage MS.
Increased need for medication due to uncontrolled pain or symptoms. Shortness of breath. Difficulties performing the tasks of daily living: bathing, getting out of bed, getting dressed, walking, or preparing and eating meals. Increased number of trips to the ER and multiple hospitalizations.
Cancer the Most Common Diagnosis in Palliative Care Patients.
The study found that people with MS lived to be 75.9 years old, on average, compared to 83.4 years old for those without. That 7.5-year difference is similar to what other researchers have found recently.
The truth is that 15 years after the onset of MS, only about 20% of patients are bedridden or institutionalized. Another 20% may require a wheelchair, or use crutches, or a cane to ambulate, but fully 60% will be ambulatory without assistance and some will have little deficit at all.
A person with benign MS will have few symptoms or loss of ability after having MS for about 15 years, while most people with MS would be expected to have some degree of disability after that amount of time, particularly if their MS went untreated.
Although MS can sometimes be a debilitating disease, the majority of people who have it don't become severely disabled, according to the National MS Society.
As you get older, MS becomes more of a progressive disease. You might notice your MS symptoms start to get worse just as you reach menopause.
MS can have debilitating effects, such as paralysis, blindness, impaired thinking and loss of bladder and bowel control. That's because scar tissue forms around the nerve fibers, preventing them from sending electrical impulses to and from your brain.
You can receive palliative care at any point after a terminal diagnosis. Some people receive palliative care for years. Your doctor or nurse may mention or suggest palliative care because they want to make sure you have all the support you need.
End of life care should begin when you need it and may last a few days or months, or sometimes more than a year. People in lots of different situations can benefit from end of life care. Some of them may be expected to die within the next few hours or days. Others receive end of life care over many months.
The main difference of palliative care vs end of life care is that end-of-life care is for people diagnosed with a terminal illness who have six months or less to live, whereas palliative care is for people at any stage of serious illness, even as early as the day of diagnosis, and are therefore still pursuing curative ...
Commitment, Conviction, Compassion.
That is what Crossroads Hospice is all about—and whenever faced with adversity or a challenging situation, we consult the three Cs.