2015 and 2016 counts, and five stages that are not a timetable

Hospice is whole care: help in spending the time that remains with meaning, in easing pain, and in moving toward a good death. Treatment-centered facilities often fail to meet the bodily, social, mental, and spiritual needs of a person with terminal cancer. Hospice is meant to protect the person's dignity and quality of life, and to lessen a family's grief. People who had received hospice education showed a significant change in their sense of a good death and of the meaning of a life; it does not give a fuller effect size than that.

The cancer figures it uses must stay in their years. Cancer is the leading cause of death among people in Korea. In the 2015 national cancer screening, 16,717 cases of stomach cancer, 4,772 of breast cancer, 4,760 of colorectal cancer, 2,352 of liver cancer, and 587 of cervical cancer were found. In 2016, cancer deaths per 100,000 people ran, in order, lung, liver, colorectal, stomach, and pancreas. Those counts are not treated here as this year's official totals.

The five stages, as the account describes them, are not presented as a clock. Denial refuses the fact that death has come close, and still hopes that treatment can save a life. Anger turns on oneself and on the situation, with the thought 'why me.' Bargaining pleads with a doctor or prays, trying to strike a deal with the situation. Giving up, in that account's wording, is the stage in which all expectation and will disappear. Acceptance acknowledges death, sets one's traces in order, and writes a list of things still wanted.

A shared room, a family memory, and a ward that does not pay

Simply telling patients and families about the stages, and that their reactions are understandable, can already help, the account says. Group counseling brings together people in a similar time, diagnosis, and condition, in the same room or in a shared meeting. It is described as an interpersonal process with therapeutic functions such as trust, catharsis, support, acceptance, and care. Talking with peers can bring comfort and a move toward accepting death. A few sessions are treated as expected; after that, attendance is left to the person.

The largest regret may be not having made a loved one happy. Family nursing tries to leave happy memories, not only hard ones. Home care starts from the way the patient is most at ease, after safety has been checked. It may include a visit to a place that still matters, so that a trace of oneself can be felt there, or a video, a photo, a letter, or a short piece of writing, if that is wanted. Clubs can be run for things people still wanted to learn — exercise, music, reading, travel, cooking, photography — with lighter sports such as yoga and swimming, and travel that helps a person look at a landscape and at other people and set a life in a more affirmative order. Caregivers need periodic counseling, so that misunderstandings are caught and so that they do not wear out. Some hospice wards are hard to open because they do not pay, and some are run only by volunteers. That limit sits next to the list of things still wanted, and is part of the source's picture of care.

Sources

1. hospice nursing and the five stages of accepting death, including group counseling, family and home care, and caregiver support. Cancer screening figures are from 2015; cancer deaths by site are from 2016.

Last updated: 14 November 2026