Does hospice care hasten death?
No. In fact, a 2007 study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management reported that hospice care may prolong the lives of some terminally ill patients. Among the patient populations studied, the mean survival was 29 days longer for hospice patients than for non-hospice patients. In other words, patients who chose hospice care lived an average of one month longer than similar patients who did not choose hospice care. Researchers selected 4,493 terminally ill patients with either congestive heart failure (CHF) or cancer of the breast, colon, lung, pancreas or prostate. They then anlayzed the difference in survival periods between those who received hospice care and those who did not. Longer lengths of survival were found in four of the six disease categories studied. The largest difference in survival between the hospice and non-hospice cohorts was observed in CHF patients where mean survival period increased 81 days. The mean survival period also was significantly longer for
