Grief Case Studies

A 70- year-old woman admitted to the hospital with COPD that lives alone in a retirement community who recently lost her best friend of 40years. Her husband also died last year, they were married for thirty-five years. Her family lives one hour away.
I think first in assessing her you would look for obvious physical signs of grief, loss, and even depression or anxiety. “Physical symptoms common of an acute grief response would be tearfulness, crying, loss of appetite, feelings of hollowness in the stomach, decreased energy, fatigue, lethargy, and sleep difficulties”. (Meiner, 2015, p. 326)
In the facility that I work patients are assessed on admission with suicide risk evaluation questions such as if they have been hospitalized for trying to
He has a very close-knit family, as a hospital nurse you would help prepare and help the family work through the anticipatory grief process by educating that there is no time limit on the grief process and no two people will deal with the grieving process in the same way. I myself coming from a family that has suffered multiple deaths over the years and being a nurse is that you are never really prepared for the death of a loved one even though you may have had some time to process the fact that death is likely and as a nurse you know it is more likely than not with certain types of cancer no matter how much hope the family may be given. My mother died from cancer ten years ago and I still in some ways feel that I suffer from grief mostly around the holidays. I tell families that support groups are a good place to start, often times there are people there in various stages of the grief process and it is helpful just to sit and listen even if you say nothing at all while you are there. Sometimes counseling is also helpful. I also encourage families to sit down and talk to one another because effective communication in key during this process. And always remember to take care of yourself above all else. I being the only nurse in the family at the time literally ran myself down to the point that I had to be hospitalized following my mother’s death. Unfortunately, this put another stress on my family that they didn’t need immediately following my mother’s funeral. I personally don’t know how I made it until the night after my mother’s funeral to physically collapse, but I did. That’s why I always educate families on the importance of taking care of themselves before and after the death of a loved one because I know the consequences when you