National Conference of Palliative Care – Alba Iulia, 26-28 October 2017

National Conference of Palliative Care – Alba Iulia, 26-28 October 2017

LIFE IS ABOUT DAYS! – THE CONCEPT OF TIME IN PALIACY
(summary)

Time is in a indissoluble relationship with life. Time is the space for relationships. Time is a condition for life. We live more and more often under the feeling of urgency and timeless times. Always on the run, with eyes on the clock and in time crisis, we forget the ancestral urge “to spend your time.” That is, not only to go through it but also to feel it personally and reflect upon it.

Then we go into his “if” registry. If we only had time to figure out that it’s not good to have no time. If we knew that subjective time is the one that really matters. If we could remind ourselves how little it takes to truly live the times and time between them … And yet, we often live by life. And one day, we realize “time has no more patience.”

Accompanying the patient on the path of a terminal disease diagnosis is a difficult approach that puts together acceptance and denial, fight and giving up, life and death. How does the patient live during his life when he first finds out that he has cancer? But when communicating a limited prognosis of life? What is the ratio between subjective and objective time? How does the time between the patient’s time and family time occur? How long does the palliative care team need to contain patient suffering? Can a compressed time expand, a silent time? How does life live near death? But the time of death alongside life? What is the rhythm of this time? When does it stand? When does it stop? And how can it go further?

The workshop aims to nuance the dimensions of palliative time and highlight the impact that limited life expectancy has on the patient, the family and the palliative care team. With case studies, we will show the importance of communication and emotional support in the way the patient receives the news of the disease, accepts the diagnosis and reconsiders his life from now on. We will see how power the way the patient integrates the illness and how emotional decompensation can be achieved in the context of the approach of the doctor’s prognosis. We will also explain the pressure of the lack of time sometimes felt by those who work in palliative care.

All this will lead to a better understanding of what the patient is living, so that the time he still has to become a good, full and soulful healer.

dr. Dana Nagy, Oncohelp Center Timisoara, psych. Manuela Furdi Hospice Timisoara