Tips for More Than Just Surviving the Holidays • Simplify the season • Allow extra time for rest and reflection • Poll others for ideas… or not! • Join a bereavement support group • Hold tightly to some traditions • Enjoy letting other traditions go • Create new traditions • Consider switching venues or timing • Manage expectations of yourself • Be reasonable in your expectations of others • Don’t be afraid to “include” your loved one in this new holiday season
Photo courtesy of: C Saville Photography
• Be open to good surprises
the holidays. There is also a natural tendency to attribute any messy feelings to the loved one that will not be in their usual place, fulfilling their accustomed role. Why not mitigate the challenges of the season by writing a new script and remembering that uncomfortable feelings were likely part of last year’s holidays, too? With our new strategies in place, we don’t have to “just survive” the holidays. In fact, new ways of celebrating may become a wonderful part of our healing process and legacy of our loved one. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate gift? Susan E. Sheehan, CT, LCSW, ACHP-SW, principal at finishing well consulting, LLC, holds graduate degrees in public administration, systems theory and medical social work. She focuses on offering creative insights to facilitate high-quality medical, palliative and hospice social work and provides in-home medical social work. Sheehan anticipates the publication of Dying Words: Talking Points for Mortals. Read excerpts at FinishingWellConsulting.com.
healthbriefs
Hospice Care Adds Months for Cancer Patients
R
esearchers from Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center determined that hospice care significantly increases survival rates among patients with metastatic (stage IV) melanoma, a difficult-to-treat form of cancer that occurs when melanoma cells have spread through the lymph nodes to other parts of the body. The study’s authors followed 862 metastatic melanoma cancer patients. Of these, 523 patients received one to three days of hospice care, 114 patients received four or more days and 225 people received no hospice care through their survival period. Those that received four or more days had an average survival period, which typically dates from the original diagnosis, of 10.2 months, while those that received none averaged 6.1 months. In addition, the end-of-life hospital costs for those receiving the most hospice visits were nearly half of what was incurred by patients not receiving hospice attention.
Hip Fractures Decrease on Weekends and Holy Days
A
new study published in the Israel Medical Association Journal found that older adults are more likely to have hip fractures in the wintertime, except during weekends and on religious holidays. The study’s authors checked the records of 2,050 patients that were at least 65 years old and had suffered a hip fracture. Analyzing the dates of each fracture revealed that significantly more of them occurred during the wintertime; the injuries corresponded directly with lower temperatures and greater rainfall. Fewer fractures took place on the Sabbath and during weekends in general, as well as on Yom Kippur and other holy days, with the exception of Passover. natural awakenings
December 2014
37