In this course, you’ll learn how serious and life-threatening illnesses often affect emotional and spiritual well-being. Illnesses can increase stress as patients and families learn to live with a “new normal” that may often focus on illness. You’ll learn how to tell when normal sadness (or grief) becomes something more serious and needs to be addressed. People with serious illnesses also have social concerns as their family, friends and community support system becomes stretched, and sometimes fails. We’ll talk about resources and skills you can use to help support patients and families. You’ll learn about advance care planning, that includes shared decision-making, setting goals of care, and writing down plans for care.
Introduction to Common Psycho-Social-Spiritual Concerns
In this course, you’ll learn how serious and life-threatening illnesses can affect emotional and spiritual well-being and increase stress on the patient's support network. We’ll talk about resources and skills you can use to help support patients and families. You’ll also learn about advance care planning, which includes shared decision-making, setting goals of care, and writing down plans for care.
In this module, you will learn how to determine if someone is experiencing normal grief about losses with serious illness. You will also learn when feeling sad becomes a more serious problem, like depression, demoralization, or the desire to die. You’ll also learn how caregivers also grieve.
Providing support and care in the last days of life is important. We only have one chance to provide excellent care for this person. Patients and families often feel afraid and overwhelmed. You can help ease suffering when everyday stress becomes unmanageable anxiety. You can also help patients and families understand the dying process; express their preferences for care; manage common symptoms, and provides practical, emotional, spiritual and social support. You can help make serious illness and the last days of life positive and meaningful experiences.
Provide Support and Care in the Last Days of Life5m
Comfort Care Plans5m
Care of the Body2m
7 readings
Read this before the next lecture10m
What's Normal?10m
Death Anxiety10m
How You Can Help Ease Anxiety30m
Helping People Cope with Serious Illness10m
Provide Support and Care in the Last Days of Life30m
Comfort Care Plans30m
1 practice exercise
Anxiety and Coping Assessment30m
Week
4
2 hours to complete
Easing Spiritual Distress
In this lesson, we’ll talk about the difference between spirituality and religion. Then you’ll learn skills for respectful spiritual conversations with patients and family members.
Ways to Understand Serious Illness: Moral and Biomedical5m
Ways to Understand Serious Illness: Social and Energy Body4m
Spiritual Distress or Spiritual Crisis?5m
What are Miracles?5m
Keeping Hope Alive3m
5 readings
Watch this video before the lecture5m
Core Values and Tips for SNAP (Optional)2m
Ways to Understand Serious Illness20m
Spiritual Distress or Spiritual Crisis?10m
Keeping Hope Alive10m
2 practice exercises
Ways To Understand Illness10m
Easing Spiritual Distress Assessment30m
Week
5
4 hours to complete
Advocating Advance Care Planning, Shared Decision Making, Goals of Care, and Family Meetings: “We Cannot Direct the Wind But We Can Adjust the Sails.”
In this lesson, we will talk about a very important topic that concerns each and every one of us. Advance care planning, shared decision making, goals of care, advocating for those we love and family conversations are central topics we all will run into eventually. What kind of care would we want if we could not speak for ourselves? Who do we want to stand up for us and speak for what we want if we can’t do it ourselves? What are our values and beliefs, what gives us joy, what do we want when time on this earth is limited? Using these principles as the guiding light, goals of care emerge and along with them preferences for treatment. We will look at ways to help facilitate the identification of these goals of care as well as how to help caregivers understand and support their loved ones wishes and desires.
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About the Palliative Care: It's Not Just Hospice Anymore Specialization
People living with serious, life-limiting, chronic illness experience significant suffering. Fortunately there are new and developing treatments which may cure some and improve survival for many people living with serious illness. However, seriously ill people and their loved ones still experience many distressing physical symptoms as well as spiritual, social and psychological distress. There is much we can do to support people to live well with serious and life-limiting illness by understanding the causes of suffering, using effective communications, and incorporating careful assessments and interventions designed to address specific needs.
The Palliative Care: It’s not Just Hospice Specialization covers core concepts on the nature of suffering and demonstrates how to evaluate suffering and illustrates this in realistic patient scenarios. In subsequent weeks we learn and practice specific skills to improve communication with patients and families to help them express their experience, express and understand their core goals and values and our own empathic response. You will also learn about specific problems such as physical pain, fatigue and shortness of breath as well as psychological issues such as depression and anxiety. In addition, spiritual and social distress will be discussed with a focus on the practical evaluation and management of these challenges. All of these skills will enable you to support people to live active and full lives despite serious illness....
Frequently Asked Questions
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
Once you enroll for a Certificate, you’ll have access to all videos, quizzes, and programming assignments (if applicable). Peer review assignments can only be submitted and reviewed once your session has begun. If you choose to explore the course without purchasing, you may not be able to access certain assignments.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.