Abstract
Demoralisation is a clinical state of low morale and poor coping, characterised by hopelessness, pointlessness, entrapment, and the potential desire to suicide.
Systematic reviews have suggested a prevalence of 15% among palliative care patients. The risk of suicide points to its clinical importance.
Screening with a psycho-existential symptom assessment tool improves its recognition.
Clinicians need strategies to enhance a person’s sense of the value of their life, promote hope, and increase the person’s sense of control over whatever life remains.
Demoralisation can be managed with cognitively-oriented, supportive and meaning-centered therapies, while also treating co-morbid anxiety and depression, and optimising physical symptom control.
Speaker bio
David W. Kissane MD is an academic psychiatrist, palliative care physician and researcher in the fields of psycho-oncology and palliative care.
He currently holds the Chair of Palliative Care Research with the University of Notre Dame Australia and the Cunningham Centre at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.
Professor Kissane’s academic interests include studies of existential distress, group, couples and family psychotherapy trials, communication skills training, and the ethics of end-of-life care.
He is best known for his work on demoralisation syndrome as a specifier for adjustment disorder and major depression in the medically ill, a form of low morale and poor coping that has preceded interventions to promote meaning-based coping. His model of family therapy delivered to ‘at risk’ families during palliative care has prevented forms of complicated grief and prolonged grief disorder in bereavement.
He has developed the Demoralization Scale, and the Shame and Stigma Scale in head and neck cancer.
While this event targets health professionals, anyone with an interest in end-of-life and palliative care is welcome to register to attend.
Click here to register via Zoom
This is one of more than 20 online sessions being held over four days – all with a focus on end-of-life and palliative care. Three evening events target health professionals.