Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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How Does Atul Gawande View Quality of Life in Dying ?

September 15, 2021

 

   A good life to the very end 

Atul Gawande’s acclaimed book, “Being Mortal“ opened our eyes to the medical way of death. He showed millions of readers how the quality of life and human interaction while dying trump the number of years gained through questionable painful procedures and dying in an institution.

He tells us that “our ultimate, goal, after, is not a good death but a good life to the very end

 

Quality of Life Can Be There to the End of Life

GCM Nina Herndon brings you that same quality of life message- about dying –where an elder can still live the end of life with joy. Her chapter “Supporting Clients’ Quality of Life: Drawing on Community, Informal Networks, and Care Manager Creativity” in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition is a geriatric care management Nina has devoted her career to giving elders a care plan for a happy life and a happy life to the very end.

 Bringing Joy in the here and now of Dying

 Bringing joy in the here and now of dying can be done through using quality of life tools- Spiritual, emotional, intellectual, creative, and physical quality of life. Increasing the spiritual quality of life can mean for a person is dying and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connecting them to the faith they are familiar with. Even homebound clients can have visits from members of a religious community or a prelate. They can have hymns sung, prayers said or whatever religious ritual their spiritual group follows, like communion, at home. Care providers can be trained to engage them by reading religious texts or playing hymns.

The Power Reminiscence at End of Life

Spirituality can be the environment. I once had a client who was in a nursing home dying of cancer and wanted to go home to die with hospice and 24-hour care. Hisgrandma_holding_rosary_shutterstock_40017103-255x255.jpg 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.

Tools for Reminicance at End of Life

Friends emailing short personal videos with good wishes and memories, that a family member can show on a phone or computer- can bring emotional joy at end of life. Sending notes, not of condolences but great memories can be a salve to dying. Volunteering to give respite to family members, if 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 they can bring the joy of reminiscence if shared at end of life or with seniors at any time.

 

 

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Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, Hospital care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Photo Albums& Reminicance, Quality of Life, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life in Death, Quality of Life in Dying Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, assessing for quality of life, Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black geriatric care managers, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, death and dying, geriatric care manager, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, nurse care manager, Quality of Life at end of life, quality of life in dying, Reminicence Therapy, Reminiscence at End of Life

How Does Atul Gawande View Quality of Life in Dying ?

February 21, 2021

iStock_000003595079_Medium.jpg

 

   A good life to the very end 

Atul Gawande’s acclaimed book, “Being Mortal“ opened our eyes to the medical way of death. He showed millions of readers how the quality of life and human interaction while dying trump the number of years gained through questionable painful procedures and dying in an institution.

He tells us that “our ultimate, goal, after, is not a good death but a good life to the very end

 

Quality of Life Can Be There to the End of Life

GCM Nina Herndon brings you that same quality of life message- about dying –where an elder can still live the end of life with joy. Her new chapter “Supporting Clients’ Quality of Life: Drawing on Community, Informal Networks, and Care Manager Creativity” in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition is a geriatric care management Nina has devoted her career to giving elders a care plan for a happy life and a happy life to the very end.

 Bringing Joy in the here and now of Dying

 Bringing joy in the here and now of dying can be done through using quality of life tools- Spiritual, emotional, intellectual, creative, and physical quality of life. Increasing the spiritual quality of life can mean for a person is dying and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connecting them to the faith they are familiar with. Even homebound clients can have visits from members of a religious community or a prelate. They can have hymns sung, prayers said or whatever religious ritual their spiritual group follows, like communion, at home. Care providers can be trained to engage them by reading religious texts or playing hymns.

The Power Reminiscence at End of Life

Spirituality can be the environment. I once had a client who was in a nursing home dying of cancer and wanted to go home to die with hospice and 24-hour care. Hisgrandma_holding_rosary_shutterstock_40017103-255x255.jpg 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.

Tools for Reminicance at End of Life

Friends emailing short personal videos with good wishes and memories, that a family member can show on a phone or computer- can bring emotional joy at end of life. Sending notes, not of condolences but great memories can be a salve to dying. Volunteering to give respite to family members, if 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 they can bring the joy of reminiscence if shared at end of life or with seniors at any time.

 

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

If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, Hospital care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Photo Albums& Reminicance, Quality of Life, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life in Death, Quality of Life in Dying Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, assessing for quality of life, Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, care manager, case manager, death and dying, geriatric care manager, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, nurse care manager, Quality of Life at end of life, quality of life in dying, Reminicence Therapy, Reminiscence at End of Life

Can a Geriatric Care Manager or Social Worker Be a Midwife for a Good Death ?

June 24, 2017

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Atul Gawande’s breakthrough book, Being Mortal tells us the ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end. Elizabeth Kubla- Ross tells us the death is really in parts called five stages.

A Care Manager or Geriatric Social worker can be a midwife through these five stages to a good death, reaching towards joining the ultimate midwife team, hospice.

The Acceptance phase of death occurs when people finally are able to cope with the mental, social, physical, religious and financial effects of their disease, a heavy load  In the disease process and acceptance process, this is the period of time after a medical procedure such as chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. The client’s response to treatment is being monitored. Recovery does not always mean remission, but instead, it is the ability to accept and deal with the struggles of their illness. 

A Story About the acceptance phase Mr. Murphy

William accepted his coming death while in the hospital. He had 4 physicians’ who were treating him aggressively for renal failure with dialysis. He was 93 and refused to sign a DNR. The doctors discovered what they thought might be a tumor. However, they were afraid the biopsy procedure would be too radical for his age. So they kept up the dialysis.

The care manager appealed to the nurses for help when the physicians would not intervene. A nun appeared – it was a Catholic hospital- and said, ” the nurses called me to go around this problem.  Talk to the head Dr. about ordering palliative care.” The Care Manager did.

Sure enough, after the care manager talked to him that physician ordered palliative care. Then one by one one the 4 physicians came to Bill’s bedside and talked softly, asking him to accept that he may have cancer and the biopsy could not be done. The last, a gentle urologist, held his hand and talked of letting go and accepting he would die. He agreed to stop the dialysis.

Bill accepted his death reluctantly wanted to live to watch his 3 great grandchildren grow. The urologist ordered palliative care and Bill changed the DNR with the help of his son. Hospice met with the family and all agreed to move William to the son’s home with 24-hour care and hospice to die. 

Gwendolyn LAZO Harris MA, CT, Seniors at Home, San Francisco and Diane LeVan MA both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter “Palliative Care and End of Life Care Manager ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family  

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, elder care manager, End of Life Care manager, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Palliative care manager Tagged With: Acceptance Phase of Death, aing life care manager, Atul Gawande, care manager, case manager, geriatric care manager, Hospice, nurse care manager, palliative care manager, recovery phase of death

Being Mortal Now on PBS Special

February 11, 2016

iStock_000003595079_Medium.jpg

 

Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal has been made into a PBS Front Line film. It features the writer and physician who took the message the hospice movement began and exploded it into the media. His very viral thesis is that death does not have to be a medicalized model and indeed most physician’s are not at all trained to deal with either chronic care nor increasing the quality of life of death- just in treating and measuring it with tests.

Care Manager’s are trained in increasing the quality of life of the chronically ill and believe in bringing joy back into the everyday moments of elders. They understand that the dying can and should have a rich quality of life and are positioned so well to help chronically ill clients transition through the 5 stages of dying.

Join me on my next webinar 

How to Add ” Death and Dying to Your Care Management Services and Deliver End of Life Care”  

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, care manager, death and dying, geriatric care manager

How Does Atul Gawande View Quality of Life in Dying ?

February 7, 2016

iStock_000003595079_Medium.jpg

 

 

 

 Atul Gawande ‘s acclaimed book, “Being Mortal“ opened our eyes to see the medical way of death. He showed millions

of readers how quality of life and human interaction while dying trump the quantify of years gained through questionable painful procedures and dying in a institution.

He tells us that “our ultimate, goal, after, is not a good death but a good life to the very end’

 GCM Nina Herndon brings you that same quality of life message- about dying –where an elder can still live the end life with joy. Her new chapter “Supporting Clients’ Quality of Life: Drawing on Community, Informal Networks, and Care Manager Creativity” in the 4th edition of Handbook of Geriatric Care Management is a geriatric care management Nina has devoted her career to giving elders a care plan for a happy life and a happy life to the very end.

•br                   Bringing joy in the here and now. to death and dying this can be  done through using quality of life tools- Spiritual, emotional, intellectual, creative and physical quality of life tools .Find out more by getting both books on Amazon.

•sp                            

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: Atul Gawande, death and dying, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, quality of life in dying

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