Palliative care and Grief theory

Running Head: Nursing
Palliative care and Grief theory
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

Palliative care and Grief theory1
Response to the Question 1
The case study will analyse the condition of a patient suffering from lungs cancer and
her family. Maria, 40 year old person is diagnosed with lung cancer. Maria is married to John
for 10 years and has two sons. Maria and her family face tremendous grief and sorrow during
her treatment of palliative care as her health advisor has suggested that there is no chance of
recovery. To manage the grief and mental stress during palliative care, one can take help
from different theories and models. These models will understand the mental state and
patterns of grieving process. Different theories which are used to understand the grief of the
clients as basics of counselling. They use models for helping and supporting patients to
analyse their emotional experiences and mental distress. The examples of the grief model are
Kubler-Ross model, Tonkin’s model, Four tasks of grieving, Six Rs of Mourning, Dual
process model. The effect of Kubler-Ross model in managing grieves and distresses will be
analysed in the context of the given case study.
In very beginning of the palliative care, the patient cannot believe his or her poor
health condition could lead death. As a coping mechanism denial comes very naturally with
the shock. With the sense of denial the patient wants to find another alternative and
sometimes patient thinks that diagnosis might be incorrect. Patient might feel tremendous
anger against God as he or she cannot change the present and a feeling of resentment can be
supported by counsellor, psychologists and nurses. Afterwards, the patient and his/her family
might have developed a hope of recovery (Maniscalco et al., 2019). This state is called
“bargaining” state in 5 stages of grief. The person can suffer from depression which affects
both her physical and psychological wellbeing. As a result of depression the patient can
suffer from loss of appetite, energy, weight along with disturbed sleep and pains. The
patient remains in the state of sorrow and suffered from low motivation and lack of
happiness. The patient majorly chooses social isolation and withdrawal. The last step of this