Bereavement: Summary and Related Issues
Medline provides basic information on bereavement, related issues, clinical trials, journal articles, patient handouts and age specific information for children, teenages and older adults. Information also available in multiple languages.
Palliative Care: Summary And Related Issues
MedlinePlus provides basaic information on the definition of palliative care, palliative care related to serious illness, cancer, clinical trials, support groups and other topics. Information is also available in multiple languages.
Palliative care is treatment of the discomfort, symptoms, and stress of serious illness. It provides relief from distressing symptoms including:
Hospice Care: Also Called End-Of-Life Care
Hospice care is end-of-life care. A team of health care professionals and volunteers provides it. They give medical, psychological, and spiritual support. The goal of the care is to help people who are dying have peace, comfort, and dignity. The caregivers try to control pain and other symptoms so a person can remain as alert and comfortable as possible. Hospice programs also provide services to support a patient's family. Usually, a hospice patient is expected to live 6 months or less. Hospice care can take place:
Advance Directives
What kind of medical care would you want if you were too ill or hurt to express your wishes? Advance directives are legal documents that allow you to spell out your decisions about end-of-life care ahead of time. They give you a way to tell your wishes to family, friends, and health care professionals and to avoid confusion later on.A living will tells which treatments you want if you are dying or permanently unconscious. You can accept or refuse medical care. You might want to include instructions on:
End Of Life Issues: Death And Dying, Terminal Care
Planning for the end of life can be difficult. But by deciding what end-of-life care best suits your needs when you are healthy, you can help those close to you make the right choices when the time comes. End-of-life planning usually includes making choices about the following:
Death and Dying: Lifespan Development- A Psychological Perspective
We have now reached the end of the lifespan. While it is true that death occurs more commonly at the later stages of age, death can occur at any point in the life cycle. Death is a deeply personal experience evoking many different reactions, emotions, and perceptions. Children and young adults in their prime of life may perceive death differently from adults dealing with chronic illness or the increasing frequency of the death of family and friends. If asked, most people envision their death as quick and peaceful.
Planning Ahead and Elder Law
Below are a number of legal tools available on estate and end of life planning. This information is relavant to the State of Minnesota. Factsheets are also available in Spanish, Hmong, Hmoob, and Somali/Soomaali.
Grief Support Kit From L'Arche Canada: Aging And Disability
This L'Arche Canada: Aging And Disability's grief support kit shares three documents (Manual, Journal and Backgrounder), facilitating groups with people who have an intellectual disability. The grief support kit also looks at ways that people can support one another through the grieving process.
Culturally Adapting an Advance Care Planning Communication Intervention With American Indian and Alaska Native People in Primary Care.
Advance care planning (ACP) is a process in which patients, families, and providers discuss and plan for desired treatment goals. American Indian and Alaska Native people (AI/AN) have higher prevalence of many serious, life-limiting illnesses compared with the general population; yet AI/ANs use ACP considerably less than the overall population.
Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Jewish Patients
Judaism, one of the world's oldest religions, claims an estimated 14.3 million members worldwide. There is great diversity in terms of identity, practice, and belief among people who identify as Jewish. As of 2017, 40% of the global Jewish community resided in the United States, making it essential for palliative care clinicians to understand religious and cultural issues related to their serious illness care. In this article, we will discuss 10 important concepts relevant to the inpatient care, advance care planning, and bereavement needs of Jewish patients and families.