Daily HealthBeat Tip

Heading off complicated grief

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

It's enormously stressful to be a caregiver for a family member who is dying slowly. Depression and feelings of being overwhelmed during their loved one's life become, after the death, a deep and abiding grief � what's called complicated grief.

But a University of Pittsburgh researcher says coping techniques that help caregivers while their loved ones are alive also seem to reduce the chance they'll fall into complicated grief.

Richard Schulz's study of relatives of people with dementia was in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. It was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Schulz says caregivers do better when they learn to deal with their emotions as caregivers:

"These strategies, if implemented prior to the death, have the potential of protecting the individual from negative response after the death." (eight seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October 17, 2006

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