This report has been prepared on the topic “Supporting Significant Life Events”. Various events take place in the life of an individual which create an impact on the quality of life of the individual. Significant life events can be understood as the major changes in the circumstances of the individual which affects the life of the individual. This report has discussed the impact of these events on the individual, effectiveness of the policies and procedures in providing support to the individuals, the response of the organization to the need of individual dealing with significant life event and recommendations for enhancing the support in HSC organization to the individuals. Service providers need to ensure that proper support and care is provided to the individual facing a significant life event. Effective communication process needs to be used for communicating with the individual so as to identify the support needs.
Dementia is the stage when a person develops feelings and emotions of grief and agrees to continue with it. This may cause loss of their abilities and skills and independence as well. A person gets lost and starts feeling isolated because he/she will feel everything very confusing and unfamiliar (Alz. Org, 2012). They may seem frightened and worried about their future. Bereavement is the condition when an individual is suffering from a loss. The loss can be because of the death of anyone or the loved one.
There are severe effects on the social, physical and psychological aspect when a person is suffering from dementia and bereavement.
As per the given case study, the social impact seen on the women who was facing it was that she could not take care of her daughter and for which she had to move to England from Spain so that her family members can take care of her daughter. Moreover, she could not concentrate on her work and her boss started doubting her as if she was involved in taking drugs (NIH, 2017).
The physical pain caused due to dementia is a person starts feeling anosmatic throughout the day and night. According to the case study, the lady had taken around 40 appointments in a year which included brain scans to sleep studies. She also suffered from losing hairs and sometimes even forgets to eat or get dressed. For this, she had to leave Spain and travel England so that her family would support her and take care of her daughter as well (NIH, 2017).
Likewise, psychological impact was also seen during the case. She could not realize what was real and what was unreal and moreover, she could find out the difference between what was important and what was unimportant. She could not concentrate easily on the work as well as on her personal life. She could not make sense of whatever was told to her. Although she could listen to it but cannot react what to say.
It all depends on people to people how they react to someone who is suffering from bereavement and ill health. Some people support the victims while some may think it can be cured slowly by the person on their own. But one should always support other when he/she is suffering from any losses. In the given symptoms, an individual supports the victims and encourage them to share their feelings only if they wish to (Thorpe et al., 2012). They do not force the patient to say anything theta they do not wish to do. Some patients may not be express their feelings orally so one can use other activities to support them and know what they exactly feel. They must be given enough time to express and make them comfortable enough so that they can mix up with you and start reducing stress. Whatever they feel to do must be supported like if they wish to try new hobby then they must be given the opportunity to do the same (Schoenmakers, Buntinx and Delepeleire, 2010). For an example, to identify the needs of the patient, we can use assistive technology. Assistive technology is a device which helps to identify the everyday living of an individual.
Some people are highly involved in meditation, prayers or yoga. These activities help to cope with the stress and lead a peaceful life. So, when a person is suffering from such disease, he/she must be motivated to adopt such spiritual needs which will help them to satisfy their inner peace. Sometimes, it becomes very difficult to identify the inner needs of a person which a prayer can easily so. Likewise, counsellor also plays a major role in it because they will be able to provide dementia support about what they feel (Alzheimer’s society, 2017).
For an example, if a girl gets married and her husband dies after few months of the marriage. It becomes very difficult for a widow to face the society as well the recover herself from the pain and feelings that were attached to her husband. It becomes very difficult to know what she exactly feels and how will be she able to get out of that pain. There she must suffer psychologically and mentally (Svanberg, Spector and Stott, 2011).
Grief is that stage of feelings when it becomes difficult for the victim to pass their time and they start feeling guilty for no reasons. If an individual is suffering from dementia and bereavement, then it has the impact on the other also. People who live with them or the people who are around them has also to suffer along with the patients (Nappa, 2012). It is also a kind of loss for all the family members. Family assures the victims that they are not the one who is suffering because they are the one who always keeps supporting the patient. The family members may feel guilty for the way the patient reacts and gets treated to cure the disease (Alzheimer’s society Canada, 2017). Their odd behaviour and lost tempers may hamper the others. It may create unwanted responsibility for the others to take care of the patient. It may cause loss of relationships and one cannot plan their future together. It is quite obvious to feel angry and that anger can create difficult behaviours which the other can find difficult to manage. Sometimes, a person may feel to hit the person who is suffering from dementia (Salehi, Dang and Das, 2014).
So it is very difficult to manage such people who are suffering from dementia because their unpredictable behaviour may create problems for others and family members too.
Bereavement implies the action of being bereaved. In other words, bereavement means grief which is a normal part of life.The people who are suffering from bereavement they need some support as they start facing challenges such as lack of motivation, confusion, more frequent illness, anxiety and many more. The possible organization responses to the need to support individuals experiencing a significant life can be described as follows:
The organization can support them by providing bereavement policy and acknowledging them personally. Bereavement policy involves paid leaves and vacation leaves which make the employees feel relieved (Roepe, 2017).
They can also conduct grief counselling which can help the employees to recover soon. A grief counsellor can answer the victim’s questions and can provide emotional support to them. The employers should offer the victims their sympathy and ask them if they can do anything to help them. The employer should convince the victim that they do not need to worry everything is all right at work. The deadlines of their work should be exceeded so that they can complete their work easily without any stress. The organization can conduct some sessions for the victims which can help them to recover soon (Alis, 2015).
Bereavement is the position when an individual suffers from huge loss or when an individual is not capable to think properly (FCA, 2016). There are several counsellors who work on these types of diseases. I personally believe that when a person is suffering from such disease, then he/she loses to his/her conscious mind and cannot focus on what they do(Dementia, 2017). I have also experienced such people in my life and she was my close friend. She was suffering from the same problem which was later cured after so much of efforts. I used to visit her every day and encourage her to do those activities which she was interested in. she used to express sometimes about what she feels but it was not so easy to understand those emotions. I also motivated her to perform some spiritual activities like yoga and prayers because I felt a pinch of the smile on her face whenever she used to perform yoga. I don’t know what made her smile, what that yoga or something else .
Moreover, I also helped her to get involved in some activities that she would enjoy doing like playing with numbers, watching comedy videos but it did not work at all. At last, I visited a doctor who helped her to get rid of it.
Here are few recommendations that will help to improve the affected victims.
Conclusion
This report has discussed the impact of the significant life event on the health and quality of life of a person. Impact of the significant event can be seen on the mental health as well as physical health of the individual. There is a need to provide support to the individuals who are experiencing a significant life event. In the case provided Jacqui was suffering from dementia which has resulted in social impact, physical impact and mental health. Support has to be provided by the HSC organizations to these individuals so as to enhance the quality of life of these individuals. For providing support to the individual’s organizations can adopt different measures. These measures include support groups, long-established practice, setting operating procedure standards for providing quality services and adopting a family-centric approach. Young Dementia UK has provided support to Jacqui which has helped Jacqui in shifting to her own flat.
References
Alis, 2015, Employers: Helping Your Employees Cope With Loss, Viewedon February 16, 2018. Available at:https://www.umass.edu/studentlife/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Helping%20Your%20Employees%20Cope%20With%20Loss.pdf
Alz. Org, 2012, What Is Dementia, viewed on 15th February, 2018. Available on: https://www.alz.org/what-is-dementia.asp
Alzheimer’s Association, 2018, dementia Care Practice Recommendations, viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available on: https://www.alz.org/dementia-care-practice-recommendations/
Alzheimer’s society Canada, 2017, Impact on family and friends, viewed on 15th February, 2018. Available on: www.alzheimer.ca/en/Home/Living-with-dementia/Staying-connected/How-relationships-change/Impact-of-the-disease/Family-and-friends
Alzheimer’s society, 2017, Understanding and supporting a person with dementia, Viewed on 15th February, 2018. Available on: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/info/20046/help_with_dementia_care/31/understanding_and_supporting_a_person_with_dementia/4
Dementia, 2017, Sources of support for families, viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available on:https://www.dementiauk.org/sources-of-support-for-families/
FCA, 2016, Guide to understand dementias patients, viewed on 16th February, 2018. Available on: https://www.caregiver.org/caregivers-guide-understanding-dementia-behaviors
Nappa, U. 2012, the effect of bereavement groups on grief, anxiety, and depression – a controlled, prospective intervention study, viewed on 15th February, 2018. Available on: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4941031/
NIH, 2017, What Is Dementia, viewed on 15th February, 2018. Available on:https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-dementia
Roepe, R.L., 2017 How to Support Employees through Grief and Loss, Viewed on February 16, 2018. Available at: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0917/pages/how-to-support-employees-through-grief-and-loss.aspx
Salehi, A., Dang, V. and Das, D., 2014. Neurobiological Basis of Cognitive Dysfunction in Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. Neurobiology of Aging, 35(3), p.719.
Schoenmakers, B., Buntinx, F. and Delepeleire, J., 2010. Factors determining the impact of care-giving on caregivers of elderly patients with dementia. A systematic literature review. Maturitas, 66(2), pp.191-200.
Svanberg, E., Spector, A. and Stott, J., 2011. The impact of young onset dementia on the family: a literature review. International Psychogeriatric, 23(3), pp.356-371.
Thorpe, J.M., Thorpe, C.T., Kennelty, K.A., Gellad, W.F. and Schulz, R., 2012. The impact of family caregivers on potentially inappropriate medication use in no institutionalized older adults with dementia. The American journal of geriatric pharmacotherapy, 10(4), pp.230-241.
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