In need of a 250 word response/discussion to each of the following forum posts. Agreement/disagreement/and/or continuing the discussion.
Original forum discussion/topic post is as follows:

Select a chronic or terminal illness notdiscussed in the text readings and identify the symptoms, underlying pathological physiology, and stages of the illness. Discuss the experience of the patient with this condition and your approach as a crisis manager or counselor. How would you assist the individual, family members and loved ones?
Outline your list of the common or “pat” responses to a person experiencing the crisis of death, or with suicidal intentions. What are the potential unintentional consequences? List your top six therapeutic approaches to the crisis of death, and then to the suicidal individual.
Discuss the instinct for survival, and your analysis of appropriate crisis approaches for suicide prevention in children, teens, adults, and the geriatric population.

Forum post response #1

For the first part of this post I chose the terminal illness of Huntingtons disease. Symptoms of the disease include an inability to control movements, behavioral changes, and body posture abnormalities. Also included in this list are changes in a persons judgement, cognition and emotions. This disease is caused by the degeneration and death of neurons in various areas of the brain that are involved in the control of voluntary movements. As the neurons die and a person progresses through the stages of the disease, they begin to lose control of their movements, exhibit a very rigid body posture, have issues with hand eye coordination, and become very jerky in their motions. They may also develop seizures and have difficulty with cognitive processing of information or events. Due to the unpredictable progression of the disease, people who develop Huntingtons will “usually die within 10 to 30 years following diagnosis.” (www.ninds.nih.gov) Since this disease will end with the death of the person, I would consider doing treatment that incorporated hospice care. Depending on the persons spirituality, I would consider suggesting they seek spiritual guidance and counseling to help cope with their inevitable death. I would also suggest the person seek counseling that incorporates the family and loved ones of those closest to the patient. This way they can all seek closure and understanding of the events about to come and start to work through the grieving process. Incorporating the family will also make it possible for all involved to be able to spend as much time together as possible before the persons passing. An understanding of the disorder, what their loved one will be going through and experiencing, as well as ways for all to cope will help guide them through this difficult time.
Some of my automatic responses when someone tells me they are suicidal is to try and fix the issue. I tend to press too much in wanting to know what is going on and why and what I can do to fix it. I have to stop myself from doing this because I have to realize I cannot fix their issues. This can be extremely detrimental because I unintentionally make it more about what I want to do than what the person needs. This might push them more into a hole where they feel no one really cares about their real issues or reason for their suicidal ideations. My top six choices for the therapeutic process for suicidal person and to cope with death would be behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, psychodynamic, existential and integrative.
The survival instinct is a drive that we are born with that keeps us safe. It alerts us to danger in the environment and enacts our fight, flight or freeze response. Children do not necessarily understand the concept of death or dying so trying to get them to understand the permanency of suicide would be the main focus. Choosing the words right and the way it is explained is vital to getting the message through. One does not want to use the same verbiage with a geriatric patient as they would a young child or teen. For geriatric patients I believe it would be more focused on comfort and having them connect with their family to establish their importance. They are at the end of their life and might feel they are unimportant, so suicide would be their option. If we can get them to connect with their family more or become more involved, it might sway their thinking.

Forum post response #2