Palliative Care and Bereavement

Catalog description

Palliative care focuses on enhancing the quality of life for persons with life-limiting conditions and their families throughout potentially curative treatment and disease progression, through assessment and intervention methods that prevent and ease suffering ¿ biological, psychosocial, and spiritual. From a biopsychosocial perspective, this course provides students with the conceptual, assessment, intervention, and professional skills to assist individuals and families across the lifespan facing illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, dementia, and Parkinson's Disease from the time of a palliative care diagnosis to day of terminal care diagnosis. Additionally, the course applies a holistic viewpoint to the assessment of ecological, social, and psychological factors influencing individual and family well-being in emphasizing best practices in addressing psychosocial stress and grief. This course will cover multiple areas, such as: (1) Psychosocial and spiritual issues, (2) Optimizing quality of life, (3) Strategies to support individuals and families, (4) Ethical and legal issues, (5) Communication, and (6) Interprofessional practice. Focusing on sociocultural and ecological approaches to relationship building and problem-solving, the course emphasizes best practices in patient/client and family-centered methods. The course is designed to foster clinical skills, thoughtful reflection and critical thinking, research knowledge, and skills of synthesis and logic crucial to assisting persons and their families from the healthcare to counseling setting. Students will be asked to participate in role-play simulations, contribute to weekly in-class discussions, develop and analyze case studies, analyze empirical-based literature, complete written assignments, and create a final project.