Through personal experience as a caregiver to my parents, I gained first-hand knowledge of the responsibilities family caregivers carry on their shoulders. It became important for me to find out what other family caregivers say they need to help sustain their spirit during the journey of caring for someone they love. The outcome of this inquiry is a devotional developed in direct response to family caregiver interviews and their answers to survey questions. Woven between the pages of this devotional is a message for family caregivers, individuals concerned about family caregivers, faith communities, and for community groups that are not faith-based. The devotional is a companion for the caregiving journey that invites you to seek spiritual strength and wisdom from God and to replenish your spirit of compassion and love.

"Caring for the Family Caregiver is an extensive practical tool kit for health care providers across the healthcare continuum. Regardless if it is a mother caring for a child with a developmental disability, a wife caring for a husband with a long term chronic illness, or a daughter sitting at the bedside of her father who is enrolled in hospice, family caregivers are the silent "other patient" in the health care drama. Healthcare providers who do not attend to the needs of the caregiver not only inflict interactional suffering, but dilute their treatment by not engaging the caregiver as a partner. In fact, they may unintentionally do harm as the caregiver flounders and thus patient treatment fails. As noted by one dying cancer patient in an educational YouTube video of his cancer journey, "there are two patients not one." If we are to eliminate the interactional suffering experienced by family caregivers, we must train both the caregiver and the health care team for the important interaction and roles that are required for the successful care of the patient. Caregivers lack information, skills, and emotional support for the tireless task they are volunteering for. They need to be taught how to advocate for themselves and their patients and how to best communicate with the health care team. Likewise, health care providers have the skills and knowledge to provide outstanding patient centered care; however, they are not taught the importance of the family caregiver, nor do they always understand that experience or how to help"--

Judith Allen Shelly offers guidance on caring for a patient's soul in this revised and expanded guide for anyone who provides care to those who are suffering.

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Spiritual, Religious, and Cultural Aspects of Care is the fifth volume in the HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals series. Chapters address how to conduct a spiritual assessment of patients and families, spiritual interventions including compassionate presence, listening deeply, bearing witness, and being compassionate, how to partner with the patient and family to ensure culture guides the plan of care, how to find meaning in illness, the many dimensions of hope and its influence on the dying process. The content of the concise, clinically focused volumes in the HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals series is one resource for nurses preparing for specialty certification exams and provides a quick-reference in daily practice. Plentiful tables and patient teaching points make these volumes useful resources for nurses.

Kozier and Erb’s Fundamentals of Nursing prepares students for practice in a range of diverse clinical settings and help them understand what it means to be a competent professional nurse in the twenty-first century. This third Australian edition has once again undergone a rigorous review and writing process. Contemporary changes in the regulation of nursing are reflected in the chapters and the third edition continues to focus on the three core philosophies: Person-centred care, critical thinking and clinical reasoning and cultural safety. Students will develop the knowledge, critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills to deliver care for their patients in ways that signify respect, acceptance, empathy, connectedness, cultural sensitivity and genuine concern.

Care Managers: Working with the Aging Family addresses the unmet needs of care managers working with aging clients as well as the client's entire family. With its in-depth focus on the “ aging family system, this book fills a gap for medical case managers and geriatric care managers giving them tools to better meet the treatment goals of aging clients and their families, as the older clients move through the continuum of care in institutional based settings or community based settings. Care Managers: Working With the Aging Family uniquely focuses on helping the entire family unit through the process of death and dying, helping midlife siblings to work together to render care to aging parents. It adds proven techniques to the care manager repertoire such as family meetings, forgiveness, technology, and care giver assessment. It offers multiple tools to do an effective care plan so that both the needs of the family and the older client are met.

Textbook of Palliative Medicine provides an alternative, truly international approach to this rapidly growing specialty. This textbook fills a niche with its evidence-based, multi-professional approach and global perspective ensured by the international team of editors and contributing authors. In the absence of an international curriculum for the study of palliative medicine, this textbook provides essential guidance for those both embarking upon a career in palliative medicine or already established in the field, and the structure and content have been constructed very much with this in mind. With an emphasis on providing a service anywhere in the world, including the important issue of palliative care in the developing nations, Textbook of Palliative Medicine offers a genuine alternative to the narrative approach of its competitors, and is an ideal complement to them. It is essential reading for all palliative care physicians in training and in practice, as well as palliative care nurses and other health professionals in the palliative care team

Praise for the Third Edition: "In this comprehensive textbook on palliative care nursing, editors Marianne Matzo and Deborah Witt Sherman succeed in bringing together the heart of nursing and the true meaning of palliative care with the most current evidence based practice." --GeriPal This fourth edition of a comprehensive text/reference that has been valued by students, educators, and practicing nurses for many years, Palliative Care Nursing continues to reflect the fundamental hospice and palliative care nursing competencies---both basic and advanced--that are essential for effective and empathetic care of patients and families. This new edition reflects the tremendous growth of this vital discipline into the mainstream of health care and focuses on palliative care that is responsive to the demand for health care reform in America and globally. It provides the knowledge, scientific evidence, and skills needed by nurses to address the complex physical, emotional, social, sexual, and spiritual needs of patients and families within the context of a changing health care delivery system. With a focus on inter-professional collaboration, the book emphasizes the value of complementary, holistic models in promoting health and wholeness across the illness trajectory, even as death approaches. The book is edited by Project on Death in America Faculty Scholars, who have worked to develop, implement, and evaluate nursing initiatives in palliative care in the U.S. and internationally. With a focus on both quality of life and economic imperatives, interdisciplinary authors describe the management of specific diseases and related physical and psychological symptoms, and care of patients during the dying process. They cover assessment of key symptoms and pharmacological, non-pharmacological, and complementary interventions. Taking a life-span approach, the book includes age-appropriate nursing considerations. Key points at the beginning of each chapter and callouts containing evidenced-based information highlight best practices. The text also examines relevant legal, ethical, and cultural considerations and offers case studies with conclusions in each clinical chapter. New to the Fourth Edition: Thoroughly revised and expanded Three new chapters addressing palliative care amidst health care reform, rehabilitation in chronic or serious illness, and post-traumatic stress disorder A conceptual framework table in each chapter identifying the National Quality Forum Domains of Palliative Care and Basic and Advanced Palliative Care and Hospice Nursing Competencies Updated evidence-based callouts that review the highest-quality studies

Originally published in 2001, the Textbook of Palliative Nursing has become the standard text for the field of hospice and palliative care nursing. In this new edition, the authors and editors have updated each chapter to ensure that the content is evidence-based and current references are included. They also have retained the important focus on case studies throughout the text and practical, clinically-relevant tables, figures, and other resources. Like the previous edition, this text has an introductory section of the general principles of palliative care followed by a comprehensive section on symptom assessment and management encompassing twenty-one different symptoms. Other key sections include psychosocial support and spiritual care, providing holistic perspective on care of patients facing advanced disease. The text also includes an innovative section on special populations addressing those most in need of palliative care. The textbook is a useful resource for all nurses with the excellent section on end-of-life care across settings. In this new edition, the pediatric palliative care section has been greatly expanded and includes seven separate chapters on pediatric care. It includes a section on "special issues" addressing topics such as ethical considerations, nursing research, and public policy perspectives and concludes with a section presenting models of excellence including six international models. This edition also offers a narrative on dying based on a spouse's perspective. The text includes an appendix with an extensive list of resources for nurses in the field.