What Are the Different Types of Hospice Courses?

Hospice refers to a specialized type of healthcare received at the end of life. It also includes palliative care, which is focused on maintaining and improving life's quality without offering a treatment to cure. Designed to educate people about this field, hospice courses help laypersons and professionals working in healthcare to increase their understanding about how various cultural traditions differ in near death practices, as well as learn effective ways to speak with patients and families about serious matters. Through the use of hands, people can learn new methods of assisting others in getting rid of unpleasant symptoms. Pain medicine courses are essential for doctors as they manage the care of hospice patients in an effort to keep them as pain-free as possible in their last days.

Certain hospice courses study the process of human grief at varying life points. In these courses, students speak about and study what grieving means for different cultures and faith traditions, as well as the important changes that happen in the process of aging. "How People Grieve" and "Introduction to Grieving" are typical coursework titles.

​During schooling and training, lots of student healthcare professionals complete hospice courses as a requirement to obtain licensing. Often called death and dying courses, students are taught how to communicate with those who are no longer receiving healing treatment and have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Students learn how to recognize when someone is experiencing issues concerning mental health and what do to assist him or her with this need. The physical processes of death and its typical causes are also discussed.

Alternative therapy provides another point of view with regards to hospice care through classes in healing touch therapy. Courses in healing touch therapy apply the idea of using one's own energy to affect the state of well-being of another person so as to relax, quiet, and relieve painful symptoms. A standard entry-level class covers meditation, using the hands to learn about one's own energy field, and practicing healing touch techniques with others.

As intense pain is often experienced by patients diagnosed with terminal diseases such as cancer, doctors often opt to complete hospice courses in overseeing and organizing pain treatment regimens for patients. Usually called pain management courses, physicians learn how to prescribe medications in such a way that it will effectively relieve the pain of their patients while avoiding dangerous effects. By finishing this kind of course, doctors will understand the side effects that are most often experienced because of taking potent pain-killers.