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Home Care for Brain Cancer

When fighting brain cancer, the health care providers in charge of your case should discuss details about home care with you and your family members.

Home care usually includes supportive measures according to your symptoms.
For example, if you have trouble walking, you probably should have a walker available at home.
If you have mental status changes, a care plan should be directed to your individual needs.

If your prognosis is poor, it is appropriate to discuss options of hospice care, advance directives to doctors, and provisions for a living will.

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Home hospice care is a way of providing pain and symptom relief, as well as emotional and spiritual support for the patient and the family, at home rather than in the hospital. It involves a multidisciplinary approach that may include a doctor or other care provider, nurses, a pharmacist, aides, a social worker, a spiritual caregiver, and counselors.
Advance directives and living wills are legal documents that spell out specifically which treatments are to be given and which are to be withheld. For example, a person with advanced brain cancer may not want to be put on a ventilator (breathing machine) if he or she stops breathing. You have the right to make these decisions for yourself as long as you are mentally competent.