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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Death & dying > General
It’s midsummer in Wyoming and Alexandra Fuller is barely hanging on.
Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe,
reeling from a midlife breakup, freshly sober and piecing her way
uncertainly through a volatile new relationship with a younger woman,
Alexandra vows to get herself back on even keel.
And then – suddenly and incomprehensibly – her son Fi, at twenty-one
years old, dies in his sleep.
No stranger to loss – young siblings, a parent, a home country –
Alexandra is nonetheless levelled. At the same time, she is painfully
aware that she cannot succumb and abandon her two surviving daughters
as her mother before her had done. From a sheep wagon deep in the
mountains of Wyoming to a grief sanctuary in New Mexico to a silent
meditation retreat in Alberta, Canada, Alexandra journeys up and down
the spine of the Rocky Mountains in an attempt to find how to grieve
herself whole. There is no answer, and there are countless answers – in
poetry, in rituals and routines, in nature and in the indigenous wisdom
she absorbed as a child in Zimbabwe. By turns disarming, devastating
and unexpectedly, blessedly funny, Alexandra recounts the wild medicine
of painstakingly grieving a child in a culture that has no instructions
for it.
A hair-raising account about the ins and outs of practising
forensic pathology in Africa As a medical detective of the modern
world, forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal's chief goal is to
bring perpetrators to justice. He has performed thousands of
autopsies, which have helped bring numerous criminals to book. In
Autopsy he covers the hard lessons learnt as a rookie pathologist,
as well as some of the most unusual cases he's encountered. During
his career, for example, he has dealt with high-profile deaths,
mass disasters, death by lightning and people killed by African
wildlife. Blumenthal takes the reader behind the scenes at the
mortuary, describing a typical autopsy and the instruments of the
trade. He also shares a few trade secrets, like how to establish
when a suicide is more likely to be a homicide. Even though they
cannot speak, the dead have a lot to say - and Blumenthal is there
to listen.
In recent years, the lens of the media has narrowed issues of
euthanasia and assisted suicide to a drama involving two players:
Dr. Kevorkian and the law. This has left suffering patients and
their families unrecognized and isolated when facing the most
painful life decision.
Here at last is a book that addresses the role of psychiatry in
dealing with a major, controversial topic in American medicine
today& mdash;treatment decisions at the end of life.
"End-of-Life Decisions: A Psychosocial Perspective" acknowledges
and explores the role psychiatrists can play as advisers to the
terminally ill and their loved ones. It describes the wide range of
emotional and psychiatric issues faced by the patient, family, and
physician that affect choices patients make to limit treatment or
seek physician assistance in dying.
A distinguished group of contributors, all of whom have
extensive experience dealing with end-of-life issues in clinical
practice, address topics that may not have been considered
previously. From dealing with issues of terminal illnesses in
children, to making difficult treatment decisions for patients with
AIDS; from judging the competency of clinically depressed patients
for making sound decisions, to understanding the influence of
family dynamics, economic forces, and language differences on
doctor-patient communication& mdash;the book uses specific case
studies and data to explore the role of professionals in
end-of-life decisions.
"End-of-Life Decisions" strikes a careful balance between the
need for patient autonomy and the challenge to make well-formulated
treatment decisions. This book will heighten modern medicine&
rsquo;s and society& rsquo;s consciousnessconcerning the
difficult challenges faced by patients and their families when
making end-of-life decisions
A basic motivation for social and cultural life is the problem of
death. By analysing the experiences of dying and bereaved people,
as well as institutional responses to death, Clive Seale shows its
importance for understanding the place of embodiment in social
life. He draws on a comprehensive review of sociological,
anthropological and historical studies, including his own research,
to demonstrate the great variability that exists in human social
constructions for managing mortality. Far from living in a 'death
denying' society, dying and bereaved people in contemporary culture
are often able to assert membership of an imagined community,
through the narrative reconstruction of personal biography, drawing
on a variety of cultural scripts emanating from medicine,
psychology, the media and other sources. These insights are used to
argue that the maintenance of the human social bond in the face of
death is a continual resurrective practice, permeating everyday
life.
A fascinating story exists just below Seattles surface, buried in
the citys many historic cemeteries. Founded in 1872 on land
acquired from Doc Maynard, Lake View Cemetery holds the remains of
one of Seattles favorite sons, Bruce Lee, whose son Brandon Lee is
buried beside him. Maynard is also buried here, along with most of
the Seattle pioneers, including the Dennys, Borens, Maynards,
Yeslers, and Morans. Princess Angeline, Chief Sealths daughter, was
buried here in a canoe-shaped coffin, and Madame Damnables remains
supposedly turned to stone. Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery, founded in
1884 by the Denny family, contains Judge Thomas Burke, known as the
man who built Seattle; a Veterans Memorial Cemetery dating from the
Civil War; and two cannons from the USS Constitution, famously
nicknamed Old Ironsides. Mount Pleasant Cemetery, founded in 1883
in Queen Anne, is the final resting place of the labor martyrs of
the Everett Massacre and William Bell, of Belltown fame.
Remembrance benches for Nirvanas Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrixs
memorial are also local landmarks.
Establishing a new set of international perspectives from around
the world on and experiences of death, disposition and remembrance
in urban environments, this book brings deathscapes - material,
embodied and emotional places associated with dying and death - to
life. It pushes the boundaries of established empirical and
conceptual understandings of death in urban spaces through
anthropological, geographical and ethnographic insights. Chapters
reveal how urban deathscapes are experienced, used, managed and
described in specific locales in varied settings; how their norms
and values intersect and at times conflict with the norms of
dominant and assumed practices; and how they are influenced by the
dynamic practices, politics and demographics typical of urban
spaces. Case studies from across Africa, Asia, Europe and North and
South America highlight the differences between deathscapes, but
also show their clear commonality in being as much a part of the
world of the living as they are of the dead. With a people- and
space-centred approach, this book will be an interesting read for
human geography, death studies and urban studies scholars, as well
as social and cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its
international and interdisciplinary nature will also make this a
beneficial book for planning and landscape architecture, religious
studies and courses on death practices.
This book is a collection of mortality abstracts based on recent
follow-up studies on the results of health disorders from the
abstracts and articles appearing recently in the Journal of
Insurance Medicine. The widely different types of investigators who
may have repeated need of outcome data (death or morbid event) in a
particular disease or risk factor will find this collection
invaluable. Such a collection is valuable not only to users in the
insurance industry, but to all physicians and health scientists who
are interested in prognosis of chronic diseases, in clinical
trials, in cost/benefit questions, in clinical decision-making, and
similar fields of inquiry.
Even the most skilled therapist may underestimate suicide
potential. Careful assessment and competent psychiatric
intervention cannot always predict the suicidality of a particular
person. "Adolescent Suicide" (GAP Report 140) presents techniques
that allow psychiatrists and all those caring for the health and
welfare of adolescents to respond to signals of distress with
timely therapeutic intervention. It also suggests measures of
anticipatory prevention.
"Adolescent Suicide" presents an overview of adolescent suicidal
behavior. It explores risk factors, the identification and
evaluation of the suicidal adolescent, and approaches to therapy.
It offers both historical and cross-cultural perspectives, the
relevance of suicide to adolescent development, mental health
training needs regarding suicidality, and related issues such as
public health policies and medicolegal concerns.
The risk of suicide presents a unique crisis in adolescent
development. For this reason, all mental health professionals will
find this report an indispensable tool in the treatment of
adolescents at risk for suicide. Drawing from years of combined
experience, this committee has applied its expertise on adolescent
development to the sobering problem of suicide.
What if we didn’t consider death the worst possible outcome? What if we
discussed it honestly, embraced end-of-life care and prepared for the
end of our lives with hope and acceptance?
In this empathetic and knowledgeable guide, TikTok star Julie McFadden
– known online as ‘Hospice Nurse Julie’ – shares the valuable lessons
she’s learned in her fifteen years as a palliative care nurse. Expertly
weaving emotional insight with practical advice, you’ll find out:
- which medical interventions help and which make things worse
- facts and myths about hospice care
- the most important conversations to have before you die
- the many inexplicable and fascinating deathbed experiences people
have
- how to navigate the grieving journey, before and after death
Set to become a go-to resource for years to come, Nothing to Fear shows
how a better death goes hand-in-hand with a better life.
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