For many losing a pet is like losing a child. A pet represents to many the only opportunity to experience a type of parenthood. The pet is their life and for some, their only friend. Hence the loss becomes more stronger for those who are attached to their pet. This is not unhealthy but a bond of love that may be different than human love but still nonetheless is love.
Losing a pet can be traumatic. Please also review AIHCP’s Pet Loss Grief Support Specialist Certification
The article, “How to Grieve the Death of a Pet” from Cleveland Clinic’s HealthEssentials takes a closer look at how to better cope when losing a pet. The article states,
“Given how much comfort pets bring, it’s understandable that losing them can be emotionally devastating. “Our animals become a part of our family,” says Dr. Sullivan. “They provide unconditional love and support, which is something that people don’t get from a lot of different places.”
Pets are family. When individuals lessen the impact of the loss of a pet they show their lack of empathy but also lack of understanding. Some may never experience the love one can have for an animal that is truly sad, but for those who do, we all too well understand the deep pain of losing a pet.
Please also review AIHCP’s Pet Loss Grief Support Specialist Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Pet Loss Grief Support.
Healthcare professionals always deal with the chance of malpractice. Mistakes can occur but they can be limited though with good practices and values. Healthcare professionals can protect themselves by following certain procedures and habits which can make it far less likely to occur.
Healthcare professionals can protect themselves from some instances of malpractice. Please also review AIHCP’s Legal Nurse Consulting Certification
The article, “Avoiding medical malpractice suits” by Keith Reynolds looks closer how healthcare providers can reduce the chance of malpractice. He states,
“To err is human. So the question is not whether a medical malpractice lawsuit will be filed against a physician, but when. As physicians pick their way through this minefield, if they’re not careful, one lawsuit from one patient could define their entire career, and lead to a loss of revenue, increased insurance costs and a massive hit to a physician’s professional reputation. Bob White, chief operating officer of malpractice insurer TDC Group, says that some specialists such as neurosurgeons or obstetricians can spend as much as 25% of their career with an open malpractice suit against them.”
Physicians, nurses or any healthcare provider can provide excellent service and protect themselves. Legal Nurse Consultants also play a key role in analyzing if standards of care were met or not met.
Please also review The American College of Legal Nurse Consulting’s Legal Nurse Consulting Certification. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification as a Legal Nurse. Please review the program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals.
Forensic Nurses play a key role in helping victims and police find justice. Many SANE nurses also become certified Forensic Nurses as well and help supply their expertise in collection of evidence for DNA during sexual assault crimes, as well as providing testimony for cases involving detailed expert advice.
AIHCP offers a four year certification for nurses in Forensic Nursing. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified healthcare professionals seeking a certification as a Forensic Nurse. Please review and see if the program meets your academic and professional goals
Children react to loss differently than adults and even more so within their particular ages of development. It is important for Grief Counselors and other mental health professionals to have a thorough understanding of how children deal and cope with loss.
The American Academy of Grief’s Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Program reviews the important elements of Child Grief Counseling. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Child Grief Counseling. Please review the program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
ADHD can affect thousands of children. It can affect focus but also the ability to be attentive. It not only affects children but also adults. It is important to diagnose ADHD to help individuals learn to cope with the issues as well as understand their behavior.
AIHCP offers a ADHD Consulting Certification. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in ADHD Consulting. Please review and see if it meets your academic and professional needs and goals.
Hypnosis can help the mind find focus and become more centered to achieve goals. Many turn to hypnosis, as well as meditation, as ways to rewire the mind and teach how to focus to achieve goals. Individuals sometimes need the extra mental boost to to meet the needs to achieve goals. Hypnosis can offer this type of help.
Clinical Hypnotherapy can help individuals reach goals. Please review AIHCP’s Clinical Hypnotherapy Certification
The article, “Could self-hypnosis help you achieve your goals?” by Jacinta Tynan looks closer how self hypnosis can help individuals reach goals. She states,
“It’s like meditation, but with intention,” Claire explains. “Hypnotherapy helps you to shift your beliefs by breaking through the ‘thinking mind’ while making powerful suggestions to our impressionable unconscious mind, building new neural pathways.”
Self affirmation, refocus and new shifts in the mind can all help an individual through hypnosis find ways to better reach goals.
The American College of Hypnotherapy offers a four year certification in Clinical Hypnotherapy. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification
Loss alters life. It also changes the individuals who experience the loss. The loss of identity and who one is can be a very difficult phase for the bereaved. Some may struggle with finding new meaning while others will cling to the past. Others will feel who they were is completely gone. Balance and understanding of how loss changes is important for the bereaved. One is different, things change, but identity is critical to keep.
Grief can alter our sense of self in life. Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
For instance, a person who was a mother and lost a baby, may feel her motherhood has been stripped. Her identity was a mother, now that identity appears gone. These are important discussions for the bereaved to have in understanding their relationship with the loss and how change affects them but also does not steal who they are in the heart. Grief Counselors can help the bereaved better understand the identity loss and properly correlate it with reality.
The article, “Change, Identity Loss, and Grief” by Eleanor Haley from What’s Your Grief presents an excellent insight into loss of identity due to loss. She states,
“But sometimes, life changes are significant enough to cause drastic shifts, like becoming a parent, losing a loved one, getting sober, getting a diagnosis, and the list goes on. These changes can shatter your sense of self and create a web of loss that quickly splinters in and around you.”
Sense of self can become loss in the chaos and grief. It is important to maintain it but also understand the changes surrounding you.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Grief Counseling.
Addiction is a dangerous game. It can lead one into dangerous and unsafe habits that later evoke shame in oneself and also possible health issues. Addiction can be to a substance, a habit, a thing, or a activity. It is important to handle addiction properly. Professionals can help those with addiction especially with any type of substance abuse
AIHCP offers a four year certification in Substance Abuse Consulting. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals. Usually health care professionals or mental health are excellent candidates for this type of program, or those who work at a facility under guidance of licensed professionals. If you are interested, please review AIHCP’s Substance Abuse Consulting Program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
Losing a pet is a painful loss that many try to diminish. The true reality is that losing a pet is like losing family. One’s grief for this loss must be recognized and not reduced to such horrible statements as “he was just a dog” or “she was just a cat”
The American Academy of Grief Counseling offers a Pet Loss Grief Support Certification for qualified professionals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Pet Loss Grief Support. Please review the program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
Please also review the video on Pet Loss Grief Support
Many patients who are dying face a sterile environment in a hospital, not comfortable and with many good intentioned healthcare professionals. Unfortunately, many healthcare professionals are not trained to help individuals deal with death, or are able to emotionally and spiritually offer consolation. The death of a person is seen more as a failure than seeing death as part of a new step in existence or part of living itself.
In some cases, the dying patient is cared by also an older relative who also is facing emotional as well their own physical struggles. This can also compound issues.
The dying patient in essence has multiple needs from a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual standpoint. They need not only physical care but whole care of their entire essence. Death and dying is a scary time in life but it is part of life. Death is not a failure, nor is it something unnatural. It is the second biggest event in one’s life next to birth itself. Yet it is shunned due to various taboos. Helping someone die well is part of the importance of end of life care. Palliative Care looks to help individuals deal with cancer life diseases, while Hospice prepares the person for death by not looking to necessarily heal but manage symptoms.
Hence care for the dying is usually divided up amongst various groups from doctors to nurses to family to ministers and chaplains. Each playing a pivotal part. In some cases, individuals fall through the cracks and their most important emotional and spiritual needs are neglected. To ensure complete care though, it is important to understand a patient’s rights when dying and what are the most important aspects to address for the dying
The dying have multiple physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. Please also review AIHCP’s Pastoral Thanatology Certification
Looking at physical needs are the first aspect. It is essential to give comfort. Pain management, breathing, and overall comfort is key. Pain management looks to address pain and discomfort from a chronic and acute sense. Unfortunately, not all pain can be caught in time and in some cases, individuals needlessly suffer from a physical standpoint. Legal statues have been passed that insist that treating pain is essential part of care.
Beyond pain, other issues such as breathing, skin sores, insomnia, loss of appetite, constipation, dehydration, nausea and fatigue are all issues caregivers must address in providing care to the dying. Keeping the patient comfortable and out of distress is a key part of care of the dying patient and it is a right of every human being to die with dignity and limited pain as possible.
In these cases, the six month period of hospice can supply a person with many pain management strategies. Unfortunately, many individuals do not utilize this service or consider it a taboo of giving up on life. None of this is true. In fact, some may recover or live longer, but this is not the goal of hospice. Hospice is about pain management and comfort. This is why it is so important to utilize to maintain one’s own dignity and comfort in dying.
Beyond these physical needs comes the numerous emotional and mental needs of the dying patient. Many want to be healed or fear death. More pastorally trained healthcare providers can also give the dying some sort of care in this regard. First, by speaking to them as a person. This is critical. Caregivers need to speak to dying as the living. Many are spoken about in the shadows as if they are already gone. It is important to understand the emotional grief of the dying. False promises are not encouraged but hope. Hope that they will not die alone. Hope that their wishes will be carried out. Hope that they will be remembered. And in some cases, discussing death no matter how uncomfortable.
Many dying wish to discuss the elephant in the room but are left to the side and emotionally left to themselves while family mourn them in advance or nurses treat them merely as a number. This is truly sad because the dying are still alive. They still have emotional needs and desires.
Beyond these emotional issues is also the spiritual. This is a more difficult road to cross because some individuals may be of a different faith or have no faith at all. One should speak to the family or look for cues. One should not look to convert one to another ideal, but merely discuss faith or what the dying wishes to express and ensure that the proper religious authorities meet their spiritual needs. Many religious cultures have a variety of needs to be met as death approaches and death anxiety can be lessened by many when religious needs are met.
As an individual embarks on the road of death, they need companions to help them. Due to taboo of death discussions, or seeing death as a medical failure, or seeing patients not as full human beings, then dignity in death is lessened. It is important for care givers to ensure full human dignity at the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels are met for the dying.
Please also consider reviewing AIHCP’s Pastoral Thanatology Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals. The program is online and independent study and open to qualified professionals seeking a four year certification in Pastoral Thanatology
Resources
Care of the Dying Patient edited by David A. Fleming and John C. Hagan III
