Hosts: Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP)

Presenters:
Dr. Anne Marie Krueger-Naug, MD, PhD, FRCPC, YAC (Palliative Care)
Program Director, Adult Palliative Medicine, Assistant Professor, Dalhousie University

David Maginley, M.Div, CSCP
Spiritual Care Practitioner

Moderator:
Dr. Romayne Gallagher MD, CCFP(PC), FCFP
Clinical Professor, Division of Palliative Care, UBC
Board Member, CSPCP

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Target Audience: Physicians from across Canada

Description: Existential distress is a term used when patients who are coming towards the end of their lives exhibit profound suffering, related particularly to their thoughts on life and existence. Specifically, it describes the reaction to that which threatens the integrity of a person’s identity. Little research has been done on the clinical expression of this phenomenon, even though, from diagnosis to eventual death, existential issues quietly, and sometimes overtly, dominant a palliative patient’s experience.

This session aims to introduce physicians to the concept of existential distress and provide an approach to identify and clarify the different aspects of this distress experienced by the dying person.

Early identification can enable timely intervention, such as counselling, spiritual guidance, and dignity therapy. Such supports have been found to increase quality of life in the terminal phase of a person’s illness.

In this session, we will:

• identify the indicators and nuances of existential distress through case examples.
• appreciate the functional role existential distress plays at the end of life, when to refer to psychosocial/spiritual care, and how to support the dying person if these specialist resources are in short supply.