Death Cafe as a formative strategy in speech and language and audiology in in palliative care

Abstract

Speech therapy interventions may be influenced by how one thinks, feels, and talks about death and dying. The literature suggests that the (future) speech therapist should learn how to manage their emotional responses related to death and dying and broaden their perspectives to consider death and dying as part of the human experience through reflective formative strategies and experiential learning, resembling the characteristics of a Death Cafe. This makes its formative use potentially applicable in this context. The Death Cafe is a global social franchise with pre-established rules, where people gather to freely discuss death as a part of life, without predefined objectives or themes, distinguishing it from grief support, lectures, and the like. Studies discuss the benefits of students and healthcare professionals participating in Death Cafe, including transforming death into a naturalistic perspective, exploring the humanity of dying, reassessing how they approach and want to approach end-of-life care, managing emotions, and enhancing clinical judgment.