Beyond the Primary Caregiver: Supporting the Other People in a Palliative Patient’s Circle

This article addresses systems theory and how we can provide support for additional people in the palliative patient’s life, beyond the primary caregiver. This is the fifth article in a series of joint conversations about the similarities and differences with pediatric and geriatric specialty populations. (Read the other posts: Developmental Life Cycles, Social Work Research, End-of-Life Decisions, Getting Started).In many articles about hospice and palliative care, there is an additional emphasis placed on supporting the caregiver in addition to the patient.  In our work with patients, we are often asked to identify the “primary” caregiver so as to have a point person for our communication. We know, though, that there are often many more people in a patient’s life that are affected by their terminal disease. Often we have face to face encounters with these additional loved ones. This article intends to identify the types of additional people we often see in pediatric and geriatric settings, and provide suggested interventions on how we might be able to practically provide support.First and foremost though, let’s talk about the primary care provider in each respective specialty.Allie: In the pediatric world, many of the conversations and even interventions are aimed at the parents who tend to be the primary caregivers for palliative care patients. Whether this is one person or more depends on many factors: are the biological parents married or even together in ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: caregiver caregiving family hospice miles palliative PCG Shukraft social work social worker systems theory Source Type: blogs