family & friends
What becomes of the broken hearted?
Coping with grief when a member of the family dies is a minefi eld of mixed emotions for the devastated loved ones left behind
t is very distressing when a loved one dies. If you’ve been a carer you may feel like you have lost a main purpose in living as well as that person. Grieving is a painful but necessary part of coming to terms with your loss – you may experience many confl icting emotions, such as anger and helplessness, as well as sadness. Fortunately, bereavement care is now
I
routinely offered to carers, family and close friends.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
• Be kind to yourself – you need time to recover from the loss. • There is no shame in talking about how you are feeling – express your emotions and don’t be afraid to cry. • Don’t be afraid or ashamed to accept support from your family and friends. • Eat healthily and don’t allow yourself to get run down. • Get plenty of rest.
Living with loss
Research carried out in the US by the Harvard Medical School revealed that bereaved people are 21 times more likely to have a heart attack the day after their loss. Elizabeth Mostofsky, lead author of
the bereavement and heart attack study, says: “Grief is known to cause feelings of depression, anger and anxiety, and those emotions can cause an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and blood clotting. Those factors can, in turn, increase the chances of having a heart attack.” The bereaved are also more likely to get less sleep, eat poorly, and have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, all
Planning For Later Life Magazine
of which contribute to an increased heart attack risk.
Regular medications can also end up being neglected, warns Elizabeth: “A heart attack is always due to a confl uence of risk factors – the perfect storm,” she says. “A person has to be both at risk and have the loss – the body has to be vulnerable to that event.” The Harvard researchers asked 1,985 people who’d survived a heart attack, with an average age of 61, if they’d recently lost anyone signifi cant in their lives, and how meaningful the loss was. For some people, the death of a ‘signifi cant other’ meant relatives, for others it was their friends or neighbours.
Among the study participants, 270 (13.6%) had lost a signifi cant person in the previous six months, including 19 whose loss was no more than a day before their heart attack.
Dr Mike Knapton, the British Heart Foundation’s Associate Medical Director, stresses: “Obviously you can’t do anything about a bereavement, so the message is to think about your cardiovascular risk now.” This means following the usual messages of not smoking, eating a healthy diet, exercising, and taking any medication needed, he says. “The key is to make sure your resilience is as good as it can be in the event of a bereavement by looking after your health now.”
Help is at hand
What To Do When Someone Dies is a free practical guide to support the bereaved in the fi rst few days and weeks after a
death, published by probate advice service Simplify and the Bereavement Advice Centre.
The guide sets out each step in
the process – from how a death is confi rmed and how to register it, to which organisations need to be advised of the death, how to arrange a funeral, fi nding out about probate and what to do if the person wishes their organs or tissue to be donated for transplant.
It also explains why a post mortem may be necessary, what an inquest is and any instances where the law differs from England in Scotland and Northern Ireland. • The free guide, What To Do When Someone Dies, can be downloaded or read on screen at
www.bereavement
advice.org There is also a
What to do when
someone dies A practical guide
Freephone number – 0800 258 5556 – that users of the guide can call for any further advice.
Call freephone 0800 258 5556
Provided by
SOURCES OF SUPPORT
• Cruse Bereavement Care, call 0844 477 9400 or visit the websites
www.crusebereavementcare.org or
www.cruse.org.uk • Your GP • Local church/library notice board • The Bereavement Advice Centre, call 0800 634 9494 or visit the website
www.bereavementadvice.org
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