Assessment of grief in the elderly
Section: TEACHING TO LEARN
Authors
Inmaculada López Martín
Position
Profesora del Departamento de Enfermería de la Universidad Europea de Madrid.
Contact address
c/ Dinamarca, 7. 29905 Getafe (Madrid).
Contact email: inmaculada.lopez@uem.es
Abstract
Looking at death from a Western perspective causes personal and family comflicts that result in non-expressed grieving processes and poorly accepted losses. Healthcare personnel, and in particular those workers who work in close contact with terminally ill patients and death, have in many cases become the only “facilitators” of grief in families, especially in large cities and in elderly populations. In this stage of life (old age), there are tremendous losses of different nature which triggers the presence of simultaneous grieving processes. Because grief is a very personal and individualised global process, a bio-psycho-social assessment becomes of great importance and should be regarded as a start point to detect risks and needs and to provide specific help to confront the vital crisis that loosing a loved one represents.
The professional that conducts assessments and follow ups of grieving processes with his or her clients can find large variations in the level of affectation in the “more physical behaviour patterns” or in those patterns those that entail the more psychological and spiritual aspect of the person. The assessment of a person undergoing grief must estimate the strength of the grief determinants in the first place and assess whether these can become predictors of dysfunctional grieving risk or indicators of dysfunctional grieving risk. Given the difficulty in assessing this affliction, it is necessary to complement the interview and exploration with methods or instruments as objective as possible in order to assess the multidimensionality of the grief and its longitudinal evolution.
Healthcare professionals must seek main carers of terminally ill people, trying to identify as early as possible people who are suffering from grief and offering them help and appropriate care. This attention can be provided using a personal or a family approach. It can also be done referring the affected individuals to support groups.
Grieving processes can cause potential adaptation problems to the person involved and to his or her family. This is an area of great interest for nurses, both in specialised care as well as in primary care.
The professional that conducts assessments and follow ups of grieving processes with his or her clients can find large variations in the level of affectation in the “more physical behaviour patterns” or in those patterns those that entail the more psychological and spiritual aspect of the person. The assessment of a person undergoing grief must estimate the strength of the grief determinants in the first place and assess whether these can become predictors of dysfunctional grieving risk or indicators of dysfunctional grieving risk. Given the difficulty in assessing this affliction, it is necessary to complement the interview and exploration with methods or instruments as objective as possible in order to assess the multidimensionality of the grief and its longitudinal evolution.
Healthcare professionals must seek main carers of terminally ill people, trying to identify as early as possible people who are suffering from grief and offering them help and appropriate care. This attention can be provided using a personal or a family approach. It can also be done referring the affected individuals to support groups.
Grieving processes can cause potential adaptation problems to the person involved and to his or her family. This is an area of great interest for nurses, both in specialised care as well as in primary care.
Keywords:
grief; affliction; elderly; assessmentPrimary Care
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