The Seven Agreements: A Guide for Nurses and Physicians Providing Care to the Dying

For over a decade, a thousand hospice programs have relied on JoAnne Chitwood's "My Gift: Myself" Medicare approved training program to educate staff and volunteers in providing professional, compassionate care for the terminally ill patient. Now she and Dr. Melendez have greatly expanded upon this basic training to provide physicians and nurses working in end-of-life care a thorough overview of the hospice treatment program. The Seven Agreements is also an excellent reference book for primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, counselors and pastors that directly interact with any person approaching end-of-life, whether they enroll in hospice or not. JoAnne presents her training within the format of the Seven Agreements that hospice care workers implicitly make with their patients and patient families: 1. I Will Help You Understand the Journey 2. I Will Help You in Practical Ways 3. I Will Listen to You With All My Heart 4. I Will Do All I Can to Relieve Your Symptoms 5. I Will Honor your Spirit 6. I Will Walk With You in Your Grief 7. I Will Take Care of Me So I Can Take Care of You Included are effective medication recommendations for the many difficult pain and symptom management situations that are endured by hospice patients, including compounded drugs and a short overview of medical marijuana. Other subjects covered in this 358 page reference manual are: Overview of the hospice history and program operation. Understanding and helping support the grief process for adults and children. Effective listening techniques. Supporting and communicating with unresponsive, Alzheimers, and dementia patients. Palliative care emergency treatment situations. Supporting pediatric hospice patients. How to approach and manage the specific challenges of dealing with military veteran patients. Music and Animal therapy. Dietary suggestions for hospice patients. Body mechanics for lifting and transferring patients. How to spiritually support your patient and family, including how different cultures and religions view and deal with the dying process. How to take care of yourself and prevent burnout, including how to set effective boundaries. An extensive bibliography and list of end-of-life web resources.