Grief, Dying, and Emotional Responses
This is a normal emotional response to loss.
Grief
This type of care focuses on comfort, dignity, quality of life, and support for the patient and family.
Hospice care
Fear of pain, fear of being alone, and fear of losing control are common fears of this type of patient.
Increased sleeping, weakness, decreased intake, and withdrawal may be signs of this.
Approaching death or impending death
A competent patient has the right to accept or refuse this.
Medical treatment
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are commonly known as these.
Stages of grief or dying
Hospice care is usually provided when the goal is no longer cure but this.
Comfort care
Shortness of breath, pain, fatigue, nausea, constipation, and anxiety are common symptoms during this stage of care.
End-of-life care
Irregular breathing with periods of apnea may occur as death approaches and is called this.
Cheyne-Stokes respirations
Refusing treatment means the patient chooses not to start or continue treatment, but it is not the same as this.
Medical aid in dying
A patient saying, “This cannot be happening to me,” is showing this stage.
Denial
Pain control, symptom management, emotional support, spiritual care, and family support are important parts of this.
Hospice care
Decreased appetite and fluid intake near the end of life are often caused by this.
Physiologic changes of dying
The nurse may notice that the patient’s hands, feet, and lower legs become cool, pale, bluish, or this.
Mottled
This involves a legal process in some locations in which a terminally ill patient requests medication to hasten death.
Medical aid in dying
A patient saying, “Why me?” or becoming irritable with staff may be showing this stage.
Anger
The hospice team may include nurses, providers, social workers, chaplains, aides, volunteers, and this group.
Family members or caregivers
Cool extremities, mottled skin, and decreased urine output occur because of decreased circulation and this.
Slowing body function
Decreased blood pressure, weak pulse, decreased urine output, and altered level of consciousness are signs of this.
Impending death
The Code of Ethics for Nurses supports patient autonomy, dignity, comfort care, and the right to refuse treatment, but nurses must not do this.
Participate in euthanasia
A patient saying, “If I can just live until my daughter’s wedding, I will be ready,” is showing this stage.
Bargaining
This is the nurse’s priority when caring for a dying patient.
Promoting comfort and dignity
Noisy breathing caused by retained secretions near death is often called this.
Death rattle respirations
Near the end of life, the nurse should continue comfort measures, provide mouth care, reposition gently, and support this group.
The family or caregivers
When end-of-life decisions create conflict, the nurse should follow law, agency policy, professional ethics, and this.
The patient's informed wishes or advance directives