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End of Life

What Is…Palliative Care?

January 2nd, 2008 by Gilbert Guide

Palliative care reduces the amount of pain or suffering from a disease or illness. Often palliative care is administered when the actual disease course cannot be treated—or when treatment of disease(s) will result in unwanted additional health issues or problems. Many recipients of palliative care are in hospice, but they do not have to be....Read the rest of this article »

Living with Dementia: How Hospice Care Can Help

December 21st, 2007 by Audrey

What is dementia? And perhaps just as importantly, what isn’t it? In the coming months, I’ll be writing a series of articles on dementia to address the concerns of caregivers and family members who have a loved one living with dementia. Many people think of hospice care as being for the dying, and therefore not appropriate for someone who has “only” been diagnosed with dementia. However, hospice care can help greatly in the day-to-day living of a person with...Read the rest of this article »

What You Need to Know About Living Wills: Part 1

March 26th, 2007 by Ami Icanberry

I think the only living being who may not have yet heard of the Terri Schiavo case is my cat, Mildred. And, she’s no dummy. In all seriousness though, Schiavo’s case brought to the forefront our own thoughts on end of life, and the myriad moral, political and medical issues it affords. Owing in large part to an overly zealous media, we know the heart-wrenching story of the woman in her twenties who spent 15 years in a senior...Read the rest of this article »

What You Need to Know About Living Wills: Part 2

March 25th, 2007 by Ami Icanberry

(This is the second half in a two-part series. Read What You Need to Know About Living Wills: Part 1.) In continuing last week’s discussion on advance directives and the various types, I ran across an article published by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, which illustrates the importance of these documents. In a recent survey put forth to families of some 1,500 people who died—71% of whom had advance directives—“families felt better about their communication with their...Read the rest of this article »

Dealing With End of Life Issues

January 16th, 2007 by Lori Deschene

When my uncle died unexpectedly last year, my mother and aunt went to tell my grandmother together. I wasn’t there when it happened. I only know that after her initial emotional reaction, she told them, “That’s what happens in life. People live and then they die.” My grammy expressed wisdom my years could not rival, which got me thinking about death’s effects on families and friends. With this in mind, I decided to find some answers to the question:...Read the rest of this article »