Chronic Medical Illness: ACT, CBT, and MI to Improve Anxiety, Grief, Pain, and Functioning

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Jessica Vanderlan, PhD Related seminars and products

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Jessica Vanderlan, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and manager of the Siteman Psychology Service at the Siteman Cancer Center, where she provides therapy to patients with cancer and cancer caregivers and leads a psycho-oncology training program. She is a board member and director of education for the American Psychosocial Oncology Society and co-chair for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s distress guidelines panel. Dr. Vanderlan’s research focuses on psycho-oncology, distress screening, psychological functioning in gynecologic oncology, program development, and integrated psychological care. She is on the psychiatry faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine where she assists in training medical students and residents.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Jessica Vanderlan has employment relationships with Siteman Psychology Service and Washington University. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Jessica Vanderlan serves on the board of American Psychosocial Oncology Society and the on the Distress Management Guidelines panel for NCCN.

 

Additional Info

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For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.

Objectives

1. Utilise screening and assessment instruments to monitor depression and anxiety symptoms in clients coping with chronic medical illness to inform treatment planning. 
2. Appraise the impact of at least three client losses related to chronic medical illness.  
3. Conduct cognitive restructuring to reduce catastrophising related to medical illness. 
4. Utilise at least two interventions to decrease symptoms of pain, nausea, fatigue, and insomnia. 
5. Demonstrate at least two strategies for supporting family caregivers. 
6. Apply the SBAR method to communication with healthcare professionals.

Outline

• How to talk with clients about medical problems
• Facilitating engagement with the client who considers their problem to be only medical
• Social desirability and other challenges in identifying symptoms and stressors
• Collaborative agenda-setting
• Top quality of life domains to address

• Relationship between medical symptoms, pain, and distress
  • Expected manifestations of distress in the context of medical illness
  • Factors that increase risk of distress
  • Bi-directional relationship distress and illness
  • Top screening tools for distress
  • The 5 key losses associate with illness
  • Working with anticipatory grief

Depression and Anxiety
Are they inevitable after diagnosis of an illness?

• Diagnostic issues when symptoms of disease overlap with signs of depression
• Forms of anxiety that are particularly prevalent in medical illness
• Key assessment tools and techniques
• Barriers to diagnosing depression and anxiety in medical patients
• Medical consequences of untreated depression
• What to do when anxiety interferes with compliance with medical treatments
• Suicide risk and severe illness

• Effective strategies for illness-related cognitive distortions
• Cognitive restructuring to reframe, dial down, and challenge unhelpful thoughts
• Mindfulness and acceptance strategies
• Cognitive defusion to address negative and obsessive thinking
• Stimulus control for triggers
• Effective relaxation techniques and exercises
• How to decrease time in bed and other maladaptive behaviours
• Activity scheduling and health-promoting behaviours
• Values clarification in the context of medical illness
• SMART goals for committed action
• Gratitude exercises to increase resilience

• Symptom burden: how to prioritise concerns
• Motivational interviewing to harness clients’ reasons and resources
• How to address catastrophising with CBT for pain
• How to help clients with pacing
• Making room for pain with ACT
• Mindfulness, yoga, and movement for management of fatigue
• How to improve clients’ sleep with CBT – stimulus control, sleep restriction, and more
• Relaxation, imagery, mindfulness, hypnosis, and more for nausea

• How to talk with clients about readiness to die and quality of dying
• Four things that matter most for a good death
• Top worries related to desire for hastened death
• Differences between supportive, palliative, and hospice care
• Ethics in medical decision-making
• Managing family disagreements and dysfunction related to treatment options
• Decisions to withhold or withdraw care

• Best practices for communication with healthcare professionals: the SBAR method
• How to share information without breaking confidentiality
• Understanding and working with caregivers who may be as distressed as the client
• Foster resilience in family caregivers
• Management of therapist reactions, disclosures, and burnout
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Case Managers
• Psychologists
• Addiction Counselors
• Physical Therapists
• Physical Therapist Assistants
• Physicians
• Nurse Practitioners
• Occupational Therapists
• Other Helping Professionals