HOUSTON – According to the National Institute on Aging, comfort care is an essential part of medical care at the end of someone's life. It's care that helps to soothe a person who is dying.
The goals are to prevent or relieve suffering as much as possible, and to improve the quality of life while respecting the dying person's wishes.
And because of that, comfort care can look different for everyone.
In the case of Barbara Bush, she's asked to be surrounded by her family. The Institute of Aging identifies four areas of comfort care: physical comfort, mental and emotional needs, spiritual issues and practical tasks.
The biggest difference between comfort care and hospice care is that, while both are types of care for people with a serious illness, hospice care is for anyone whom doctors think has less than six months to live.