Grief Education for Caregivers of the Elderly

Through firsthand accounts and research, Grief Education for Caregivers of the Elderly focuses on the education, training, and support of individuals who care for the elderly. This book provides caregivers with methods to cope with grief and loss and will help educators design programs that meet the needs of their consumers: the elderly and their families, friends, and service providers. From Grief Education for Caregivers of the Elderly, you'll learn how to cope with the stress and emotions of caregiving and improve the quality of services to your patients. With an emphasis on caregivers of the institutionalized elderly and the special services provided by clergy, chaplains, and pastoral counselors, Grief Education for Caregivers of the Elderly offers the caregiver or educator several model workshops focusing on grief, loss, and bereavement care. Grief Education for Caregivers of the Elderly contains proven methods and strategies that will sharpen and enhance your caregiving skills, including:

• focusing on the emotional responses and phases of dying, including denial, anger, and acceptance, to help patients deal with death
• considering physical and administrative atmosphere and your elderly population when setting goals and designing workshops to provide optimal patient/resident care
• discussing the themes of grief and loss, stress management, handling change, and promoting self-care for caregivers in workshops and through self-evaluations
• developing workshops that open with grief history surveys and attitude checklists, discuss normative development and issues of old age, and have themes based on the biological, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of the elderly person
• providing caregivers with an opportunity to practice what they have learned through case studies, simulated role play, open discussions, and care plan designing
• thinking about your own mortality and learning about your feelings and ideas of growing old

Utilized at a psychiatric nursing home facility of New Hampshire Hospital, the workshop exercises in Grief Education for Caregivers of the Elderly have allowed caregivers to express personal feelings; talk about beliefs and experiences; learn about biological, psychosocial, and spiritual processes of grief and phases of bereavement; and apply these understandings and insights into typical caregiving situations. Grief Education for the Caregivers of the Elderly gives you the framework for such a program, using vignettes, composite case material, poetry, and a holistic approach to health care to emphasize the importance of your emotional health and enhanced care of the elderly.