End-of-Life; Caring for the Caregiver

Caring for Care-Givers

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Introduction

Caring for patients in their last days of life can be a most rewarding job in that it gives the caregiver the chance to show compassion and love to the dying , thereby making the latter 's last days relatively more comfortable and less lonely . Co-incidentally , nursing the dying can be a most traumatizing and unrewarding assignment because no matter how dedicated the care-givers are , no matter how much effort they put into their work , no matter how compassionate

and loving they are to the patient , death still occurs . Formal care-givers are professionally trained and they provide the services within institutions or in patients ' homes , while informal care-givers include patient 's family and friends who mostly give care at home (International Work Group , 2006 Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in the face of death , and hostility from the dying patient and their family often traumatize the care-givers . Over time , compassion fatigue develops and is characterized by among others , apathy to the welfare of the dying on the part of the care-giver . While a lot of attention has been devoted to the need for good nursing care for the dying , not enough is devoted to the critical need of caring for the care-givers . This discusses the role of spirituality in care-giving and the widespread care-giving problem that is compassion fatigue

Spirituality in care-giving

Caring for the dying can be very difficult particularly because many of the patients have fears and premonition of...