title: End-of-life issues: difficult decisions and dealing with grief.
abstract: People face many challenging psychosocial and spiritual issues as they approach the end of their lives, and caregivers need advice on how to help them. Choosing among treatment options, handling grief, addressing unfinished business, and coping with loss of self-sufficiency are difficult for the dying person, and caregivers must deal with surrogate decision making, raw emotions in the patient and in family members, and the caregivers' own grief. Listening and coping skills are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Mount Auburn Hospital, 330 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. eloomis@mah.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Beth
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Loomis
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D032722:Advance Care Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003142:Communication; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003657:Decision Making; D004645:Empathy; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005610:Freedom; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D019727:Proxy / Q000523:psychology; D012649:Self Concept; D012944:Social Support; D029181:Spirituality; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology