Grief and Loss of a dying Middle aged Adult
In the event of losing something dear and close to one’s heart, there are certain changes to individual’s life cycle, grief and loss response. Grief is defined by the online Merriam – Webster dictionary as a “deep and poignant distress caused by bereavement,” where bereavement refers to “suffering the death of a loved one.” Every age group has a different way of adapting to such loss. Loss can happen to anyone and at any time during life’s journey. Within the nursing profession, it is important to understand grief and loss experienced by the patients and families and response professionally. In this essay, discussion will be focus on middle adulthood age group and their reaction to grief and loss. This essay will also discusses the analysis of these effects using Kubler Ross and her theories to explain the stages of grief and loss that a 42 year old male is going through after being recently diagnosed with end stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He is married with children and going through the process of accepting death and dying. Nursing strategies will also be explored on how to care for such patients.
Age Group
For middle adulthood, age ranges from 40 to 60years according to Levinson’s developmental periods (Hoffung et al, 2010). Middle adulthood is characterized by changes such as physical decline, occupational peaks and new relationships formed. Being told that death is near, depresses these individuals and starts a fear that they would not accomplish what they have planned. A male is more prone to premature deaths mainly because of health behaviors they develop during their young adulthood. Moreover they experience a lot of reappraisal of early career decisions and new choices that continu...
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Sadly, life is a terminal illness, and dying is a natural part of life. Deits pulls no punches as he introduces the topic of grief with the reminder that life’s not fair. This is a concept that most of us come to understand early in life, but when we’re confronted by great loss directly, this lesson is easily forgotten. Deits compassionately acknowledges that grief hurts and that to deny the pain is to postpone the inevitable. He continues that loss and grief can be big or small and that the period of mourning afterward can be an unknowable factor early on. This early assessment of grief reminded me of Prochaska and DiClemente’s stages of change, and how the process of change generally follows a specific path.
Grief can arise from loss, whether large-scale or small, and may not be easily removed once it takes hold. Because of grief’s obstinate nature, many approaches have been developed in order to handle the repressive, and often painful, effects it can have on people’s lives. One of those approaches is Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s theory, The Five Stages of Grief. In Sierra Skye Gemma’s essay, “The Wrong Way”, she juxtaposes her own personal experiences with grief against Kübler-Ross’s hypothesis. Gemma uses her confessional, combined with empirical evidence that contradicts the Five Stages of Grief, to demonstrate that feelings of grief are unique to the individual; therefore, there is no right way to mourn.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth and Kessler, David A. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages. New York: Scribner, 2005. Print.
Individually, everyone has their own methods of dealing with situations and emotions regardless of any positive or negative connotation affixed to them. One prime example of this comes with grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” suggests that there are five stages of mourning and grief that are universal and, at one point or another, experienced by people from all walks of life. These stages, in no particular order, are as follows: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. Each individual person works through these stages in different orders for varying levels of time and intensity, but most if not all are necessary to “move on.” In order for positive change to occur following a loss, one must come to terms with not only the event but also themselves.
When you think about life and death, are you excited to live or are you scared to die? For many people all over the world, this becomes an intense thought and concern when they’ve reached a certain age. Suddenly, their life starts to flash before their eyes but slowly, as if taunting them that their youth has been lived and death is approaching. Or so it seems. There have been many studies to determine whether or not the “midlife crisis” is fact or fiction and I believe that The Swimmer by John Cheever reflects this myth in a thought-provoking and self-assessing way.
The most important formation of the stages of grief was formulated by Dr: Elizabeth Keble –Ross in her book “On Death and Dying “Dr: Kubler-Ross wrote about the stages that dying person move to go the way as they come to ideas. However, all her stages have since been rents by the big grief community as a means of explaining the grief ideas. coming to different ideas with dying is certainly a lost experience and a work for grief, so there is credit to this rending and reason to become popular with stages of Dr: Keble –Ross on the contrary not all people would experience these stages of grief , or , if all are experienced , they won’t expect to happened in this specific order. This is a compare the contrast paper on Keble –Ross, model in its
Loss is an inevitable part of life that everyone goes through. As a nurse, it is my duty and obligation to have an understanding of what each of my patients’ reactions and responses are in order to help them in their grieving process. Each person deals with grief differently, in their own way and their own time. It is a process that people will experience at some point in their life. No two people are going to experience the same grief. Grieving is not an easy process, therefore, it is important for the individuals experiencing grief to know that they are not alone. It is important to express their emotions and feelings in order to gain acceptance of the situation and to facilitate healing.
Middle adulthood begins at the age of 40 - 60. This is a time when you can’t believe where the time went. It seems like just yesterday you were graduating from college, got married, and had children. Your children are now approaching young adulthood, pushing you into the next stage of life, middle adulthood. You look in the mirror and all the signs of middle age are starting to set in. You notice wrinkles, gray hair, flabby skin and you’re having trouble reading the menu. You begin to reassess you life. Are you happy with what you have accomplished in life so far? Do you have good family relationships? Is your career on track? Are you happy with yourself?
My earliest experiences of observing nursing in action occurred during my last two years of high school. My father was diagnosed with cancer during the spring of my junior year and died right before my senior year. During that short time I watched as the nurses cared for him and I could see compassion and empathy in the way they looked at him. It never occurred to me until after I had raised my children that I wanted to be able to help people in the same way those nurses helped my dad. But now when I tell people that I want to be an oncology nurse, people often respond by saying that they would never choose that type of nursing. They say that they could not stand to watch their patients die so frequently. Their reactions, along with this course in death and dying, have made me question how I might be able to bear the challenges of nursing in an area where death of my patients may be common. I believe that oncology will be a positive specialty to work in because of the consistent advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer. Furthermore, I believe that William Worden’s four tasks of mourning as presented in our text book is a good framework for the oncology nurse to use in order to cope with the repeated losses inherent in this type of nursing (Leming and Dickinson, 2011).
Aging and old age for a long time presented as dominated by negative traits and states such as sickness, depression and isolation. The aging process is not simply senescence most people over the age of 65 are not Senile, bedridden, isolated, or suicidal (Aldwin & Levenson, 1994). This change in perspective led the investigation of the other side of the coin. Ageing is seen as health, maturity and personal Royal growth, self-acceptance, happiness, generatively, coping and acceptance of age-related constraints (Birren & Fisher, 1995). Psychological und...
Experiencing a sudden death of a loved one is one of the most difficult life experiences to endure. Sudden death is a shock, which leads families to grief stricken numbness, sorrow and sadness. A person who loses someone significant in his or her life goes through a process called grief it is the psychological process while bereavement is the actual state of suffering the loss. When we suffer emotionally we experience pain, guilt and anger, emotions are the response of the bereaved. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate an understanding of bereavement as it pertains to living with a chronic health challenge and reflect this knowledge as it relates to my resource client living with chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD). Using a descriptive review of five articles will reinforce an understanding of the concept and delineate the theoretical components of bereavement. “Everyone who is bereaved experiences grief in their own way, but just as there are specific issues associated with bereavement of sudden death so there are specific issues for particular people” (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2014). There is neither right nor wrong way for a bereaved survivor to grieve.
In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist, published the Pioneering book On Death and Dying. The work acquainted the world with the grieving process, called the five stages of grief. Kübler-Ross gathered her research from studying individuals with terminal cancer (Johnson, 2007). The first stage of the grieving process is denial. In this stage the person refuses to believe that their loved one is deceased, a common thought during this period is, “This can’t be happening to me” (Johnson, 2007).The second stage of the grieving process is anger. In this level the person becomes frustrated with their circumstances, a customary complaint is “Why is this happening to me?” (Johnson, 2007). The third stage of the grieving process is bargaining. At this point the individual hopes that they can prevent their grief, this typically involves bartering with a higher power, and an ordinary observance during this time is “I will do anything to have them back” (Johnson, 2007). The fourth and most identifiable stage of grief is depression. This phase is habitually the lengthiest as...
The Death of Ivan Illych brings an excellent in-depth description of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 cycles of grief theory. In the book, it shows how Ivan Illych goes through these cycles in their own individual way. The cycles that Kubler-Ross uses in her theory are: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. To get a better understanding of these cycles, this paper will describe each cycle and provide quotations that will help develop an idea of how someone going through these cycles may react.
Nurses work in many situations where they will observe patients and their families experiencing grief and loss. In order for patients to receive the utmost care it is imperative for nurses to have a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of these theories and the stages of grief and loss to facilitate support to their patients and their patients families.
Late adulthood is known as the period of life after middle adulthood, usually from around 65 years old to death (Santrock, 2013, p. 485). There are many varying stages of development and health in late adulthood, along with steady changing of life expectancy. Aging is a part of life, and with it comes changes in every area of living. Many diseases find late adulthood as an opportune time to affect people. Eventually, whether caused by disease or another reason, every individual dies. Death is unique to every person, and healthcare in America is changing to reflect that. This stage of life is a time when bodily processes and functions may be decreasing, but depending on lifestyle choices, death can come at different times.