Death and Life

grieving while a person is still living, over the course of the disease progression. There is so much grief in dementia. We grieve the losses. We grieve the future. We grieve the person they were and how they used to make us feel. 

Recently, the spouse of a new hospice patient shared with me that she felt a bit overwhelmed by all of the calls she was receiving from the hospice team. While we can all probably agree that too much support is better than too little, it was causing extra stress for this wife, who didn't understand why we were all calling. Hospice staff can take steps to help reduce the burden of visits upon admission.