What Does a Care Manager Do In Acute Stage of Death?
What does a care manager do after a terminal diagnosis has been given by a physician and the older person and their aging family have moved on to the ” Acute Phase”?
The acute phase of death and dying begins at the time of diagnosis. The person has heard their terminal diagnosis from a doctor or other medical staff person and is then forced to try and understand their situation. Many people can’t absorb or understand their diagnosis the first time they hear it.
Most People Who Are Threatened With Dying Are Immobilized – in Shock
Shock is often the first reaction to this acute phase of death. People are immobilized and temporarily shut down. This makes concentration and listening next to impossible. They may also want to avoid acknowledging the illness. People need time to process such news.
The care manager can help clients cope with shock by encouraging them to talk things out. Unless a decision needs to be made immediately, decision-making should be postponed until there has been some time to talk things through. If the family caregiver’s inability to perform family tasks interferes with timely medical treatment, then the care manager needs to intervene. They can organize another family to share care or help hire private duty home health care if this is affordable. The care manager can also do a mixture of both.
Ultimately decisions must be made regarding his or her medical care and available treatment options. Once treatment begins, the reality of the illness becomes a part of the family’s life, and adjustments and accommodations need to be made. At this point, the family is hopeful that a cure can be found.
Care Manager Tasks in Acute Phase:
- Arrange for private duty home care if needed and approved
- Arrange for durable medical equipment, if needed
- Coordinate and facilitate family meetings about sharing care if needed
- Visit the older client on a regular basis to monitor their symptoms, care, and support and update medication list and care plan
- Send weekly monthly report on the status of the client to all family members making them so they all know the status of the elder’s care and the arc of dying.
- Schedule medical appointments for the client so they can see the various doctors
- Drive client to medical appointments to advocate take notes and make list questions to ask to best use those 10 minutes of a typical doctor’s visit
- Assist family, in continuing to get questions answered by health care professionals about next steps after a terminal diagnosis
- Provide a “Whole Family Approach” to centrally update all family members and meet their emotional needs around the older person now that a terminal diagnosis- perhaps their worst fear is here
- Assist in compiling and organizing documents needed for advance care planning.
Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency
Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part
Join me Thursday, March 11 and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers
In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to
1.Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death
2.Help clients be active participants in their care
3.Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care
4 Provide family center care to caregiver and family
5 Choose the right support services through all stages of death
6.Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team
7 Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID
8.Use COVID -19 Family Coaching for GCM
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If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now
In the only book on Clinical Geriatric Care Management, Care Manager’ Working With The Aging Family Gwendolyn LAZO Harris MA, CT, Diane LeVan MA both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter on Palliative Care and End of Life Care Manager
spirituality was the environment and he had been a lead volunteer to build a trail in Santa Clara California from Los Gatos up the steep winding highway 17 over the Santa Cruz mountains to the Lexington Reservoir. He had no family so the care manager asked the volunteers he had worked with if they would visit him at his home. They happily agreed and 300 volunteers took shifts, 24 hours a day to sit with him reminisce, tell stories and sing while he died over several weeks. This is what joy that bringing a spiritual quality of life can offer in dying.
visiting is allowed during COVID or post the pandemic, can give an opportunity to share old memories or look at old photos and give family respite. You may have thought those old photo albums should be dumped but 
