I heard today it`s been a year.
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Of course the usual outcome is death; the person is dying. But it is absurd to suggest that hospice accelerates or causes the process.
In Jimmy Carter's case, hospice seems to have helped him as cancer treatments are energy draining. Meanwhile other patients may see hospice as a death sentence to where they give up on life and die.
One example of the latter, my Dad owned an apartment building which had a elderly lady in one unit for a good period of time. She was blind later in life but was content in the building. However her family put her in a group home run by a local hospital. Not sure it was actually hospice, but she saw it as a death sentence and quickly died.
That's not due to hospice. That's due to being ripped out of a safe and known environment by a family determined to ignore her. In the face of that, why live? Hospice can be administered at home. And a group home is not hospice; it is a formula for being forgotten. Don't confuse hospice (a plenitude of attention) with being shuffled off somewhere (a dearth of attention).
My wife has seen worse. An aging woman of considerable means living well in a rather palatial house full of good memories and natural beauty outside. But a family eager to acquire and sell the property almost literally pushed the mother out of the house into a group care facility. The ghoulish and predatory behavior of families toward their elderly parents are an inspiration to give up the ghost.