Soap operas can give wrong ideas about dying

MANY people are misled about the dying process when watching soap operas or movies, said palliative care expert Dr Kathryn Mannix.

Fiction can portray dying as dramatic but the reality is a natural process which should be explained more to patients and their families, said Dr Mannix, a retired palliative care consultant and author.

The dying process involves changes in breathing, which can alarm loved ones as the brain and body begin to ‘shut down’. If a health care professional explains or narrates the stages of dying, a bit like a midwife speaking reassuringly during a birth, then the event can be less upsetting, she said.

It is hugely beneficial if a person, before their health deteriorates, informs their loves ones of their wishes about the amount of medical intervention they would like when they die. Procedures such as life-support machines may not make a person better in certain cases and only complicates the dying process.

When an older person tells loved ones about their wishes regarding resuscitation and other issues, they can sometimes be told ‘don’t be so miserable’ or ‘you are going to live forever, Dad’.

These well-meaning responses can end such conversations but dialogue on this important issue is very important for every family, said the British-based doctor.

Whether dying takes place at home, a nursing home, or a hospital, it is the people who are present rather than the place itself that matters most.

“Dying is not a medical event. It’s a social event, a personal event,” she said.

If it takes place in hospital, consideration should be given to allow the person have a quiet space, a favourite duvet on the bed, to have one’s pet pay a visit, and perhaps favourite music on headphones, she said.

Dr Kathryn Mannix, author of ‘With The End In Mind’, will be the keynote speaker at the Irish Hospice Foundation’s Forum 2019 seminar ‘Dying, Death and Bereavement’ in Dublin Castle on October 24.