Death and Dying: Guiding Dying Persons through the Final Life Transition
(3.0 Contact Hours)
Co-Provided with ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC.
To successfully complete this course and receive your certificate, you must read the content online or in the downloadable PDF, pass the post test with a 70% or better, and complete the evaluation form.
The price of this course is $27.00. You will only be asked to pay for the course if you decide to grade the post examination to earn a certificate with contact hours.
This activity is provided through an educational partnership between Corexcel and ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC without support from any commercial interest.
It is Corexcel's policy to ensure fair balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in all programming. In compliance with the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) we require that faculty disclose all financial relationships with commercial interests over the past 12 months.
No planning committee member has indicated a relevant financial relationship with a commercial interest involved with the content contained in this course.
Corexcel's provider status through ANCC is limited to educational activities. Neither Corexcel nor the ANCC endorse commercial products.
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Course Objectives
After completing this couse participants should be able to:
- Describe the grieving process.
- Identify psychological responses, physical symptoms, social changes, and spiritual aspects of normal grief responses.
- Describe the role of cultural and ethnic traditions in the grieving process.
- Explain the psychological, spiritual, social, and physical aspects of the process of dying for older adults.
- Explain the purpose of advance directives.
- Define and describe palliative care.
- Identify and describe aspects of hospice care.
- Differentiate between hospice and palliative care.
- List the advantages and disadvantages of dying at home.
- List interactions and healing strategies for the dying.
- Describe the use of the senses in rituals for the dying.
- Examine spiritual dimensions of death and dying.
Course Description
What is grief? What are normal grief responses? What is involved in the final life transition - death? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this course. The role of culture, palliative and hospice care, advance directives, and the role of spirituality in death and dying will be described. Interactions, healing strategies, and rituals that use the senses and bring comfort and peace for the dying will also be explored.
The goal of this course is to provide the health care professional with an understanding of the psychological, physical, social, and spiritual aspects of death and dying for older adults.
Introduction
Loss is a normal part of life, and grief is the normal human response to loss. For the dying person, to die peacefully and to die with the knowledge that life has had meaning is important (Dossey, Keegan, & Guzzetta, 2000). Health care professionals can assist dying individuals and their families by incorporating physiological, psychosocial, and spiritual aspects of dying into the care provided. A "healthy death" is the goal. A healthy death has been defined as a death that has positive benefits for the dying person and the dying person's family, caregivers, and friends. Health care professionals can act as guides to help the dying person and his or her family members through this final life transition.
