Solace (eBook)

Introduction This book is written for people who want to relate, listen, and respond effectively to chronically ill people. It is designed to help you understand, and be understood by, an ill person who needs your help. This book is designed to provide specific, practical, useful, easy-to-understand guidelines for both health care professionals and lay caregivers who are interacting with chronically ill people. It offers tips about what to say and do as well as what to avoid saying and doing, and the information it shares will help you feel more confident and comfortable when you are around those who are sick. As the world's population ages, life becomes more stressful-and as pollution increases, more and more people are becoming chronically ill and in need of proper care. Most of us have a friend or family member who is chronically ill, yet, tragically, most of us don't know how to help such people in their time of need. Because we don't know what to say or do around people who are very ill, we tend to feel ill at ease and confused around them. Fortunately, by listening and responding to a seriously ill person in an appropriate and helpful way, we can offer a lifeline to his or her emotional well-being, providing much-needed peace of mind. There is a clear need for a comprehensive and authoritative source to which professional and lay caregivers alike can refer while helping the chronically ill. This volume is designed to meet this urgent need. Several assumptions about the chronically ill person guide the writing of this book:The person's illness is serious and long-term.The person is place-bound, with movement limited to the house, the nursing home, or the hospital.The person has the ability to think, understand, and communicate clearly.The person needs daily help and continuous care. All topics covered by this book were reviewed and approved by a family physician, a hospice professional, and an experienced registered nurse. However, although the contents are based on careful research, this book is not intended to be a scholarly work. Thus, an informal, easy-to-understand style of writing has been used, and a concerted effort has been made to offer practical, rather than theoretical, information. This book's fifty-nine topics deal with most of the interactions you will have with a seriously ill person, as well as with the key factors affecting these interactions. In addition, specific 'how-to' techniques are offered for each of the interactions presented. To conserve the caregiver's valuable time, a nononsense, to-the-point approach is used that presents each topic concisely, yet preserves the quality and integrity of the content. The topics are organized in a way that enables you to look up the specific information you need easily and quickly. Although each topic stands alone and is designed to be understood by itself, you can benefit greatly by reading closely related topics, you can identify these topics simply by quickly skimming the table of contents. Many lists are provided that will help you readily identify key points, saving you time (note, too, that each topic can be read entirely in less than fifteen minutes). The conciseness of each topic allows you to gain useful information in short spurts of reading rather than compelling you to devote long, time-consuming sessions to reading.