cultural assessment Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Do You Do Cultural Assessment With an End Of Life Client?

February 13, 2021

Each Culture Has Different Customs and Beliefs in End of Life

There may be cultural differences in end-of-life decision making as a result of underlying cultural values with disclosure of a terminal illness and very critically -use of life-sustaining medical treatment. With the widespread availability of advanced medical technology in the United States, people are encouraged to do everything possible to seek a cure for a life-threatening medical condition or sustain life. However, there are many other cultures for whom quality of life is more important than the length of life.

Other Cultures Do Not Follow US Medical Model

There are some societies, such as Japan, where a terminal illness may not be disclosed to a patient and it is culturally inappropriate to discuss impending or imminent death. For instance, among some Chinese, it is considered bad luck to discuss death because such talk may cause death to occur. Sometimes the ethnic elder is not expected to make healthcare decisions and the responsibility may be based on a traditional family hierarchy. For instance, in many Filipino families, there may be a designated decision-maker who is not the patient (e.g., the oldest son or a daughter or son who is a health professional) and who articulates the wishes of the elder or family.

Some Cultures Follow Religious Customs and Beliefs in Death & Dying

Other end-of-life decisions are based on religious tenets. In many Catholic immigrant communities, there may be strong resistance to an advance directive because the document would signify a “loss of hope” or be interpreted as suicide, which is against church doctrine. These beliefs may also influence the use of hospice services.

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

Fim Hold Your Breath -Cultural Assessment Critical for Life or Death

February 27, 2016

Never doing a cultural assessment with a death and dying client/ patient can have tragic consequences.Dr. Maron Monsen, a film maker made a starkly shocking film about physicians at Stanford who never understood the cross cultural meaning of an Afghan man from Fremont, California. His life certainly may have been saved by cultural understanding.

Hold Your Breath , this award winning film show care managers, physicians and health practitioners what we reap when we do not sew cultural understanding into our practice.

Watch the trailer

Do You Have a Culturally Diverse Aging Assessment Tool?

November 3, 2015

The United States has one of the world’s most ethnically and culturally diverse populations. This diversity has important implications for the provision of high quality, appropriate social, health, and long-term care services, including geriatric care management. The professional geriatric care manager (GCM) needs to consider cultural diversity, in assessments, care plans, recommendations, and monitoring to enhance the quality of life of his or her clients.

Dr. Gwen Yeo, makes these 8 recommendations so the Aging Life or GCM can enhance the quality and appropriateness of geriatric care management services with elders from diverse backgrounds.

1. Ask questions about the personal preferences and specific needs of ethnic elders; listen closely to their responses.

2. Be aware of your own values, biases, and gaps in knowledge about ethnic aging.

3. Learn as much as possible about the backgrounds of the ethnic clients.

4. Be sensitive and accepting of differences in values, beliefs, and behaviors.

5. Use trained language interpreters and cultural guides if necessary.

6. Modify assessment instruments to incorporate personal experiences, beliefs, and needs of ethnic families.

7. Refer clients to culturally competent service providers.

8. Advocate for education, outreach, and referral in ethnic communities.

Read Stanford University’s Dr. Yeo’s, excellent chapter Ethnic

and Cultural Assessment in Geriatric Care Management that includes a full ethnic care management assessment

Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition

now– or out in Kindle on Amazon this month (to keep up with technology)

Do You Know Caregiver Burden in Diverse Cultures?

February 19, 2015

Family Caregiving in Diverse Cultures

With Chinese New Year upon us , let us look at the plight of family caregivers from other cultures. In this year of the Ram they need what that sheep delivers – a year of promise and prosperity. With a family caregiver caring for an elder in a diverse culture you may really be dealing a year with no promise or prosperity but back-breaking caregiver burden.

Very different than mainstream American aging families, there is greater respect for elders in most other cultures. With the possible exception of Western European immigrants, most immigrant families strongly prefer family care over institutional care for frail elders. For families from cultures with a strong tradition of filial piety, adult children frequently perceive it as a serious obligation to personally care for their parents without non-family assistance.

This can be a source of considerable caregiver stress when, unlike in their countries of origin, there are few members of the extended family with whom to share the burden of caring for very dependent elders.So many can have no employment outside the home or prosperity. In America women caregivers many from other cultures hold full-time jobs outside the home If the adult children are not able to fulfill the obligation, it may be a source of profound guilt and caregiver depression.

Areas to Cover in Whole Family Approach -Religious and Cultural Issues

June 12, 2013

Religious and Cultural Issues – Expectations based on religious and/or cultural practices, rituals, and differing belief systems between family members all need to be considered in the “ Whole Family Approach “

Are the expectations of the adult children and the parents consistent? Oftentimes, conflicts will emerge due to differing life experiences. As intermarriage becomes more common, the attitudes within the family towards religious and cultural differences have created new challenges, particularly among the different generations.

In our You Tube series on whole family tools cultural issues are key because this Danish born aging mother brings a cultural tradition of the “ “dutiful daughter” with her. This is a long tradition in her homeland where a daughter is chosen to care for the mother until she dies.

This conflicts with the American “here and now” because her 2013 daughter is an attorney with two teenage daughters who cannot exclusively care for her aging mother.

The geriatric care manager http://www.caremanager.org/ is able to assess these cultural differences using the Whole Family approach and find a solution that meet mother and daughter’s needs and get the care the aging mother needs at the same time

Fim Hold Your Breath -Cultural Assessment Critical for Life or Death

Do You Have a Culturally Diverse Aging Assessment Tool?

Do You Know Caregiver Burden in Diverse Cultures?

Areas to Cover in Whole Family Approach -Religious and Cultural Issues

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