Literature Review

When families fight over a relative with dementia, it’s time to call in the mediator The New York Times; by Paula Span; 5/13/24 Trained negotiators can help families struggling with vexing elder-care issues.  The four adult children were in agreement. Their father, William Curry, a retired electrical engineer and business executive, was sinking deeper into dementia. ... [But their mother] remained determined to continue caring for her 81-year-old husband at home, despite the increasing toll on her own health. ... As the weeks passed, “we were really at an impasse,” [a daughter] said. “Do you override your mother?” ...  [Increasingly,] families seek elder mediation privately, before disputes land in court and imperil or destroy family relationships. [Continue reading for descriptions of how mediation differs from arbitration, from family therapy, and for cautions about this being "a fairly new field with no nationwide certification or licensing requirements."]Editor's Notes: Executive leaders, what community education and resources are you providing for Advance Directives? What family systems education and and problem-solving are you providing for your interdisciplinary team members and grief counselors? Family conflicts are inherent--in some form or fashion--with almost anyone needing dementia care, especially when paired with palliative or hospice care. (If in doubt, ask your seasoned, front-line professionals.)

St Oswald's Hospice launches 'emotional' portraits exhibition highlighting end-of-life care Chronicle Live, United Kingdom; by Sam Volpe; 5/11/24 An emotional new exhibition has opened highlighting "the bond that doesn't die" when a loved one dies and promoting the care offered by St Oswald's Hospice. Entitled Portraits with Purpose: Continuing Bonds, and created by Fenham artist Leanne Pearce, the exhibition features twelve portraits of people who have received or are receiving palliative and end-of-life care at St Oswald's. Leanne has created the artwork working closely with the families - who have experienced care and support from the charity at the most difficult of times. 

A Mother’s Story: Grieving a child on Mother’s Day KEYT3, Santa Barbara, CA; by Patricia Martellotti; 5/10/24For many, Mother’s Day can be a bittersweet reminder for mothers who have lost a child. Rosy Bucio lost her daughter, Nina, age five from a rare childhood cancer. ... Bucio offers ideas to help those who are grieving cope on Mother’s Day. Find out how Hospice of Santa Barbara also helped Bucio through the grieving process on News Channel 3.

Exploring grief: Cleveland Institute of Art student copes with loss through her paintings FreshWater, Cleveland, OH; by Karin Connelly Rice; 5/8/24 Maddie Cantrell, 21, and a painting major at the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA), grew up in the small town of Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina, with her grandparents, Alaine and Jim Sosebee, living just around the corner. ... Now a rising senior at CIA, Cantrell has found her art to be an outlet for coping with the sudden deaths of her grandparents. The result of her effort her exhibit is, “Living with Grief,” four paintings that illustrate the experience of living with grief, at Hospice of the Western Reserve’s The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Bereavement Center, ... “My work is centered around having to grow up without [my grandparents] and making a bridge between where I exist and where they exist,” Cantrell explains of her works. “... How would I speak to them if I could? Or, how would we have a conversation, even though they're not here?” ...

Building connections, showing compassion and bringing peace to patients and families St. Louis Post-Dispatch; by Mary McHugh; 5/3/24Three thousand colorfully painted rocks are artfully arranged in the landscaped outdoor meditation courtyard at Evelyn’s House, a part of BJC HealthCare, a ranch-style hospice home located adjacent to Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital. Each rock pays tribute to a patient who has spent their last days of life there. Decorated by the staff, the stones are visible through the garden window from the home’s central gathering space for families. It’s one of the first sights visitors see when they enter the facility. For the staff, including nurse Dawn Anderson, the stones are a unique and memorable way to honor the lives who have passed and prepare the staff to care for those who have yet to come. ...

Chesapeake Life Center offers monthly LGBTQIA+ drop-in grief support group Southern Maryland News Net; 5/6/24 Chesapeake Life Center will host a monthly drop-in grief support group for members of the LGBTQIA+ community. ... Grief is a hard and vulnerable time, and it is important to have safe spaces to process what we are going through. This group is intended for adult members of the LGBTQIA+ community who are grieving a past or approaching death. The group will be facilitated by a licensed queer therapist but will be loosely structured to offer an opportunity for participants to share their feelings and grieve with community.Editor's Note: Hospice & Palliative Care Today does not post upcoming, local hospice events, grief support groups, volunteer trainings, etc. However, we're posting this LGBTQIA+ grief support due to its unique need, with opportunities for replication in other hospices. 

When a parent dies: A scoping review of protective and risk processes for childhood bereavementDeath Studies; by Rebecca Hoppe, Marcia A. Winter, Chelsea D. William, and Irwin Sandler; 4/15/24Abstract: The death of a parent can have profound effects on child development. ... A scoping review was conducted in samples of parentally bereaved children to identify key processes, synthesize results, and determine research gaps. This scoping review identified 23 studies (mainly from the United States), published between 1990 and 2023, that reported child (ages 3–22 years) individual and/or environmental protective and/or risk processes that contributed to bereavement outcomes. Findings can be used to apprise clinicians, families, and policymakers of the unique nature of childhood bereavement and to identify malleable processes to target in interventions designed to prevent problematic outcomes in bereaved children.Funding: This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development through the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award [F31HD110247].

The cost of dying is going up, leaving some Florida families scrambling Tampa Bay Times; by Lauren Peace; 5/1/24 Christina Nall sat in the hospital parking lot gasping for air. Four hours earlier, her father, Bill Burke, had been alive. He’d eaten Golden Grahams for breakfast and wrapped his grandkids in tight hugs before school. He was putting on his shoes to leave the house when Nall, 33, found him slouched over on the couch. Doctors said it was a blood clot. He was 56 years old. Now, outside the Zephyrhills hospital, a fog of grief hung over Nall as the funeral director’s words cut into her. To get her dad back to his home in Missouri would cost upward of $2,000. The service and burial he wanted would cost another $6,000.

Patients tell me they've had a paranormal experience. I Believe Them — I had one too. MSN HuffPost, by Scott Janssen; 4/23/24 Tank’s life has been full of conflict and strife. Now he’s stuck in a wheelchair on his back porch with me, a hospice social worker, peppering him with questions. He’s pondering my query about why he’s feeling peace about his impending death. His eyes soften as he motions with his head toward the workshop near the back fence. “You remember me telling you about my older boy?” he asks. “The one that died by suicide?” I ask. “Yeah, I remember.” “If you count my old man, I was the second-worst father that ever lived. Most of my life I figured I’d go straight to hell when I died.” ...

Clinician burnout and effectiveness of guideline-recommended psychotherapies JAMA Network - Psychiatry; by Nina A. Sayer, PhD; Adam Kaplan, PhD; David B. Nelson, PhD; et al; 4/17/24 Importance: Clinician burnout has been associated with clinician outcomes, but the association with patient outcomes remains unclear. Conclusions: This prospective cohort study suggests that clinician burnout was negatively associated with patient outcomes from evidence-based psychotherapies. Findings support research to test the hypothesis that interventions to reduce burnout may improve outcomes from guideline-recommended psychotherapies for PTSD. Future work should determine when and how burnout is associated with intervention delivery and patient outcomes.Editor's Note: Most research on hospice and palliative clinician burnout focuses on physicians and nurses. Examine this in light of your psychosocial/spiritual professionals, i.e. social workers, chaplains/spiritual care, and bereavement counselors. 

Primrose Hospice utilising Minecraft to help children through bereavement Redditch Standard, UK; 4/13/24 The Primrose Hospice has been delving into the online gaming world to support children and young people who have someone close to them with a life-limiting illness or are bereaved. Alongside the regular support the popular game Minecraft is used to provide extra therapy. ... The Primrose has received training provided by Ellie Finch who specializes in counselling through video games, such as Minecraft.

Savie Health increasing services Noozhawk, by Ern Shugart; 4/12/24 Savie Health, a free medical clinic in Lompoc providing health, behavioral health, and vision care, is expanding its services to add a Spanish speaking women’s health group and bereavement therapy (in partnership with Hospice of Santa Barbara). Savie’s patient data attests to the need for the clinic’s services: nearly 40% are at least mildly depressed, 20% are severely depressed, and the average income/family size is $22,000 for a family of four.

Readers share stories of their loved ones’ deathbed visions DNYUZ; 4/10/24 When I started reporting “What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living,” about the visions, often of loved ones, that some people have in the final stretches of their lives, I had no idea just how universal the experience was. But within minutes of the story’s publication, readers took to the comments section to post their own memories of having witnessed the phenomenon. The stories were rich, deeply personal, and seemed to confirm something that the researcher featured in my story, Dr. Chris Kerr, knew in his years of studying such visions: they bring peace to the dying and solace to the living. Family members wrote in with stories of watching loved ones have visions, as did health care workers, who had years of experience witnessing them. [Click on the article's title to read more stories.]