Supporting Families and Caregivers (Coursera)

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Course 4 of 5 in the Palliative Care Always Specialization

What You Will Learn

- Describe several interventions to help with the emotions and coping of being a family member or caregiver of someone with serious illness.

- Conduct a basic screen for appropriate adjustment in children.

- Define caregiver burden and how to screen for it.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Course Introduction and Overview

Welcome to Transitions in Care from Survivorship to Hospice, the third course in the Palliative Care Always specialization. This course focuses on the major changes that occur during the care continuum and how these changes impact the patient. This module will provide you with information on the course structure and first steps.

WEEK 2

Review of Palliative Care

This module provides a review of the concepts learned in the course Essentials of Palliative Care and a brief summary of the symptoms covered in the Symptom Management in Palliative Care course. Check your knowledge with the ungraded quiz in the next section and review the summary videos, if necessary. Also contained in this module are the Sarah case study videos from Essentials of Palliative Care and Symptom Management in Palliative Care for those who want review her story.

WEEK 3

Survivorship

Survivorship can be different depending on the type of serious illness the patient experiences. Patients define survivorship in a variety of ways – some define themselves as survivors when in remission, while other define survivorship as living each day fully while battling disease.Survivorship is most commonly discussed in the cancer setting as patients can be considered survivors during remission. In this module we will discuss survivorship in an oncology setting and a chronic disease setting such as liver disease.

WEEK 4

Supporting the Caregiver

In this module we discuss the caregiver experience in detail, learn how to screen for caregiver distress and provide advice to support caregivers.

WEEK 5

Final Steps

Congratulations on completing the course content. You have a few more step to complete the course. First review your reflection, next complete a peer-reviewed course project and then take the final exam. We hope you have enjoyed the course and look forward to seeing you in other classes!