GERON GR 651 - Issues in End of Life Care and Bereavement

3 Credit(s) | |
Description:
This course provides a comprehensive overview of the end-of-life-phase and related challenges, as well as of how individuals experience transitions from illness into dying, and eventually into bereavement. Throughout the course, we will not only consider the perspectives of the person who is experiencing the end-of-life phase up to his or her death, but also the perspectives of family members and other members of the social network as well as involved healthcare staff. The experience of informal and formal caregivers is examined for the time period spanning from the end-of-life phase into bereavement. For the end-of-life phase, a central focus of the class is to identify what are important criteria for decision making regarding goals of care (e.g. comfort care vs. aggressive medical interventions), and to consider how public policies influence care practices. The review of the bereavement literature will pay particular attention to exploring the influence of traditional bereavement models on the thinking of both lay persons and practitioners, and to gaining a clear understanding of the current state of knowledge on grief and bereavement.

041395:1