Rosalynn Carter, who is 96, announced on Friday that she has entered hospice care at her home in Georgia.
The former first lady and former President Jimmy Carter, 99, are now spending time with each other and their family while both are in hospice care together.
The president, back in February, entered hospice care at his home rather than seek additional medical attention after a series of short hospital stays, according to a statement from the Carter Center.
FORMER FIRST LADY ROSALYNN CARTER ENTERS HOSPICE CARE
What is hospice care — and what does this mean for the Carters and anyone else who has begun this type of care?
“Hospice is health care for people who are dying,” Dr. Harold Braswell, associate professor of Health Care Ethics at St. Louis University and author of several books related to end-of-life issues, told Fox News Digital via email on Friday.
A person becomes eligible for hospice, he said, after the diagnosis of a condition with a prognosis of “six months or less to live.”
“This care is interdisciplinary, and includes medical, psychosocial and spiritual elements, as well as some assistance with activities of daily living,” Braswell said.
Unlike in a hospital setting, where doctors work to cure a disease or ailment and prolong someone’s life, hospice care seeks to manage the symptoms, such as pain, and to assist patients as their lives wind down.
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“Hospice is not curative care,” said Braswell. “It is not oriented toward curing a patient’s medical condition — and, in fact, qualifying for hospice generally requires that a patient abandon curative interventions such as chemotherapy.”
Additionally, hospice care does not intentionally cause or hasten the death of a patient, nor does it typically include 24/7 care, according to the Hospice Foundation of America’s website.
In the United States, most hospice care is given in an outpatient setting, Braswell told Fox News…
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