Accessible and instructive,Palliative Careguides and inspires health social workers to incorporate palliative care principles into their current clinical practice. Through the lenses of environmental theory and intersectionality, rich case narratives highlight opportunities for social workers to enhance their work, advancing whole-person care in the face of serious illness. Chapters include questions to concretize ideas and demonstrate real-world application, while case narratives cover a range of settings, diagnoses, and populations. This book is a useful tool for educators, learners, and practicing social workers working with individuals and families navigating complex health care systems.

Spiritual sickness troubles American medicine. Through a death-denying culture, medicine has gained enormous power-an influence it maintains by distancing itself from religion, which too often reminds us of our mortality. As a result of this separation of medicine and religion, patients facing serious illness infrequently receive adequate spiritual care, despite the large body of empirical data demonstrating its importance to patient decision-making, quality of life, and medical utilization. This secular-sacred divide also unleashes depersonalizing, social forces through the market, technology, and legal-bureaucratic powers that reduce clinicians to tiny cogs in an unstoppable machine. Hostility to Hospitality is one of the first books of its kind to explore these hostilities threatening medicine and offer a path forward for the partnership of modern medicine and spirituality. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship including empirical studies, interviews, history and sociology, theology, and public policy, the authors argue for structural pluralism as the key to changing hostility to hospitality.

As cancer treatment has evolved toward precision medicine, psychosocial research and practices for cancer patients and their family members have also raised awareness of the need for a personalized, patient-focused, family-oriented approach in the Psycho-Oncology field. Gender in Psycho-Oncology is the first book of its kind to provide comprehensive views on the role of gender in the adjustment of the individual and the patient-caregiver pair when dealing with cancer. The text explores the significant role of gender in diverse pairings of genders between the patient and the caregiver. It also highlights the importance of age, generation, and socio-cultural characteristics; the illness trajectory and lifespan trajectory of the individual and the patient-caregiver pair; and an ongoing sociocultural movement that is changing social role expectations based on gender. Offering both fundamental and practical information, Gender in Psycho-Oncology is an ideal book for healthcare practitioners from a spectrum of disciplines in the Psycho-Oncology field.

Caring for terminally ill patients and their families is challenging. Patients with life limiting illness require the skills of many professionals but also the support of their community. While most clinicians are comfortable in assessing a broad range of physical problems, it is often the psychosocial issues that prove the most complex. These issues range from psychosocial assessment to the treatment and care of patients with life limiting illnesses. Evaluating emotional, social and spiritual needs, in particular, requires excellent teamwork. This fully-updated and expanded new edition takes a comprehensive look at current practice and provision of psychosocial support as applied to a range of palliative care patients. A number of important areas are covered including community approaches of psychosocial care, neonatal palliative care, the provision of psychosocial care to families, the role of volunteers in supporting palliative care professionals, and the needs of the frail elderly, marginalised patients, and those with dementia. Including multiple case study examples, this highly practical text examines current literature and evidence to demonstrate the best research-based practice in psychosocial care. It is an essential resource for professionals working within hospitals and communities in the fields of medicine, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, counselling, primary care, and mental health.

Hospices have played a critical role in transforming ideas about death and dying. Viewing death as a natural event, hospices seek to enable people approaching mortality to live as fully and painlessly as possible. Award-winning medical historian Emily K. Abel provides insight into several important issues surrounding the growth of hospice care. Using a unique set of records, Prelude to Hospice expands our understanding of the history of U.S. hospices. Compiled largely by Florence Wald, the founder of the first U.S. hospice, the records provide a detailed account of her experiences studying and caring for dying people and their families in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although Wald never published a report of her findings, she often presented her material informally. Like many others seeking to found new institutions, she believed she could garner support only by demonstrating that her facility would be superior in every respect to what currently existed. As a result, she generated inflated expectations about what a hospice could accomplish. Wald's records enable us to glimpse the complexities of the work of tending to dying people.

Since the efforts of Dame Cicely Saunders and the founders of the modern hospice movement, compassion has become a fundamental part of palliative care. In this ground-breaking book, international experts give their critical thoughts on the essence and role of compassion, in both palliative and hospice care over the past half-century. Compassion: The essence of palliative and end-of-life care provides insight into the motivations for, and practice of, compassionate palliative and hospice care, featuring the reflections of leading healthcare professionals, social workers, chaplains and educators. Chapters utilise case examples and first-hand experiences to explore the historical and contemporary discourse surrounding the concept of compassion in palliative medicine. This book is relevant to a multidisciplinary audience of palliative care practitioners, including undergraduate and graduate students in sociology, psychology and theology, and healthcare professionals in oncology and gerontology.

Die meisten Menschen in Deutschland sterben in Institutionen wie Krankenhausern oder Pflegeheimen, wo die Personalsituation oft angespannt ist. Damit Patienten und Bewohner in Wurde und Geborgenheit ihr Lebensende erleben konnen, unterstutzen zahlreiche ehrenamtliche Sterbebegleiter/-innen die hauptamtlich Tatigen. Die Ehrenamtlichen bringen durch ihre Zeit, Zuwendung, Aufmerksamkeit, Ruhe, Gelassenheit und Offenheit Erleichterung in den Alltag und speziell in die Situation Sterbender.Dieses Handbuch bereitet auf die ehrenamtliche Sterbebegleitung professionell vor. Dabei steht die Entwicklung einer inneren Haltung der Achtsamkeit und Wertschatzung sterbenden Menschen und ihren Angehorigen gegenuber im Mittelpunkt. In der Auseinandersetzung mit eigenen Verlusten und dem Sterben lernen die Kursteilnehmerinnen und -teilnehmer, die Bedurfnisse von Menschen in ihrer letzten Lebensphase sensibel wahrzunehmen und die Beziehung zu ihnen individuell und angemessen zu gestalten. Themen sind: eigene Abschieds- und Grenzerfahrungen, Schulung der Wahrnehmung, Kommunikation mit schwersterkrankten Menschen/Gesprachsfuhrung, Trauer, eigene Motivation fur den Dienst, Psychohygiene. Dieses Handbuch Ehrenamtliche Sterbebegleitung umfasst neben einer Einfuhrung in die einzelnen thematischen Bereiche zahlreiche Ubungsmodule mit genauen Beschreibungen.

Hospice care is one of the fastest-growing segments of the U. S. healthcare system, a trend that is expected to accelerate as the median age of the population continues to rise over the next three decades. Despite over forty percent of the population now dying while on hospice care, very little has been published on the ethical opportunities and challenges experienced in the everyday lives of those giving and receiving hospice care. This book is the first comprehensive collection devoted to analyzing distinctive ethical issues arising in the delivery of hospice care and designed to promote best ethical practices for hospice care professionals and organizations. Thirteen newly commissioned chapters by seventeen hospice experts populate three thematic sections of the book, each devoted to an aspect of the intersection between ethics and hospice care. Contributors have unique qualifications and abilities to articulate and respond to ethically significant phenomena that - while not always unique to hospice care - arise in especially poignant and complex ways when caring for patients enrolled in hospice. As the shift or return to home-based care at the end of life continues, hospice professionals and programs will be faced with a broader array of terminal illnesses, cultural beliefs and traditions, and patient and family values than ever before. Hospice will no longer be tailored solely to the final stage of cancer, but will need to accommodate patients whose illnesses are variable in their progression and whose treatment plans include many medical options. The ethical orientations and frameworks that have served hospice for the past 50 years will need to be supplemented and refined if hospice is to fulfill this changing social mission. Hospice Ethics explores a new paradigm for hospice ethics from a multi-disciplinary and provides an important educational resource for professional training in end of life care.

Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth.

Physical. Emotional. Mental. Spiritual. Pain comes in many forms, diligently avoided by most of us, even at the risk of sacrificing the quality of our lives. But pain can—and should—be a catalyst for change, a doorway through which we travel on our journey from suffering to joy.

In The Gift of Pain, author Barbara Altemus links her personal journey of discovery with parallel experiences of world-renowned visionaries, artists, healers, and peacemakers to explore and understand the nature of pain. By drawing on themes of pain—failure, loss, addiction, lack of community, and loss of homeland, among others—these contributors share their intensely personal times of darkness and how these experiences ultimately lead to spiritual awakening and even joy. 

Includes stories of transformation from:

Isabel Allende • Butch Artichoker • Chief Arvol Looking Horse • Margaret Ayers • Rev. Michael Beckwith • Blaze Bonpane • Joan Borysenko • Barbara Brennan • Rickie Byars • Jack Canfield • Deepak Chopra • Larry Dossey • John Funmaker • Dick Gregory • Alaine Haubert • Goldie Hawn • Dr. Gerald Jampolsky • Rigoberta Menchu Tum • Dr. Roy Nakai • Kahu O Te Range • Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi • Martin Sheen • Jana Shiloh • Steven Simon • Frieda Tomosoa • Iyanla Vanzant

Handbook of Pain and Palliative Care: Biobehavioral Approaches for the Life Course Rhonda J. Moore, editor

This book takes both a biobehavioral and a lifespan approach to understanding long-term and chronic pain, and intervening to optimize patients functioning. Rich in clinical diversity, chapters explore emerging areas of interest (computer-based interventions, fibromyalgia, stress), ongoing concerns (cancer pain, low back pain), and special populations (pediatric, elderly, military). This coverage provides readers with a knowledge base in assessment, treatment, and management that is up to date, practice strengthening, and forward looking. Subject areas featured in the Handbook include:

Patient-practitioner communication

Assessment tools and strategies

Common pain conditions across the lifespan

Biobehavioral mechanisms of chronic pain

Pharmaceutical, neurological, and rehabilitative interventions

Psychosocial, complementary/alternative, narrative, and spiritual approaches

Ethical issue and future directions

With the rise of integrative perspective and the emphasis on overall quality of life rather than discrete symptoms, pain management is gaining importance across medical disciplines. "Handbook of Pain and Palliative Care" stands out as a one-stop reference for a range of professionals, including health practitioners specializing in pain management or palliative care, clinical and health psychologists, public health professionals, and clinicians and administrators in long-term care and hospice.

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A widely adopted practitioner resource and course text, this book shows how to apply knowledge about behavior change in general -- and the stages-of-change model in particular -- to make substance abuse treatment more effective. The authors are leaders in the field who describe ways to tailor interventions for clients with varying levels of motivation or readiness to change. They draw on cutting-edge theory and research on the transtheoretical model to explain what works (and what doesn't work) at different stages of change. Rich clinical examples illustrate the "whats," "whys," and "how-tos" of using the stages-of-change model to inform treatment planning and intervention for individuals, groups, couples, and families. New to This Edition *Reflects the ongoing development of the stages-of-change model and research advances over the past decade. *Chapter on stage-based brief interventions in health care, social service, and community settings. *Group treatment chapter has been significantly revised. *Expanded coverage of the change processes relevant to each stage. See also Group Treatment for Substance Abuse, Second Edition, by Mary Marden Velasquez et al., a manual for a group-based approach grounded in the transtheoretical model.

This volume examines crucial concerns in palliative care, including the proper balance between comfort and cure for the patient, the integration of spiritual well-being, and the challenges of providing care in the absence of basic medical services and supplies. In the first section, palliative-care pioneers Constance Dahlin, Eduardo Bruera, Neil MacDonald, and Declan Walsh recount the early history of the discipline. Part 2 discusses the role of poetry, prose, plays, and other aspects of the humanities in the practice of palliative care. Part 3 explores essential current issues in the field, including autonomy, the use of opioids, and the impact of artificial intelligence on the evolution of palliative care. The final section focuses on the spiritual dimensions of pain and suffering. Rich with anecdotes and personal stories and featuring contributions from pioneers and current practitioners, The Pursuit of Life is an essential assessment of the past, present, and future of palliative care. In addition to the editors, the contributors include W. Andrew Achenbaum, Stacy L. Auld, Elena Pagani Bagliacca, Costantino Benedetti, Courtenay Bruce, Eduardo Bruera, Joseph Calandrino, Jim Cleary, Constance Dahlin, Andrea Ferrari, Mauro Ferrari, Joseph J. Fins, Bettie Jo Tennon Hightower, Kathryn B. Kirkland, Robin W. Lovin, Neil MacDonald, Charles Millikan, Dominique J. Monlezun, Tullio Proserpio, Giovanna Sironi, Daniel P. Sulmasy, and Declan Walsh.

In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Fishman shows how communicating better with patients about their pain can help physicians create safer and more effective treatment strategies. Listening to Pain offers physicians a wealth of practical guidance about asking the right questions and assessing patient responses, including: -What questions to ask pain patients when they first present with pain -Using functional goals as outcome measures -Educating patients about the risks and benefits of treatment -Documenting patient consent and compliance with treatment regimens -How to manage difficult patients

Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. The most thorough text available on providing patients and families with quality end-of-life care "The study/learning questions at the end of each chapter make this book an excellent resource for both faculty who wish to test knowledge, and individual learners who wish to assess their own learning....The book is well written and easy to read. 3 Stars."--Doody's Review Service End of Life Care: A Practical Guide offers solution-oriented coverage of the real-world issues and challenges that arise daily for clinicians caring for those with life-limiting illnesses and conditions. End of Life Care: A Practical Guide includes specific clinical guidance for pain management and other common end of life symptoms. The second edition has been made even more essential with the addition of chapter-ending Q&A for self assessment and board review, new coverage of multicultural medicine, an increased number of algorithms to assist decision making on complicated clinical, legal, and ethical issues. Six sections walk you through the complexities of caring for patients who are nearing the end of life: Preparing Patients for End of Life Management of Symptoms Diagnostic and Invasive Interventions Ethical Dilemmas Special Populations Diversity No other text better assists physicians and other clinicians in providing patients near the end of life with support, guidance, and hope in the face of "hopelessness" than End of Life Care: A Practical Guide.

Alzheimer disease afflicts more than twelve million people worldwide, and its incidence is increasing at a staggering rate. People with the disorder are living longer than have those in previous generations, and they require interventions for quality-of-life issues associated with palliative care. However, the symptoms of Alzheimer disease often fail to place such persons into settings where palliative care resources are available to them. Indeed, clinicians and other caregivers may be unsure about what constitutes effective palliation in these cases. At the same time, the ethical issues involved in providing end-of-life care to persons with Alzheimer disease remain on the margins of mainstream bioethics.

In "Ethical Foundations of Palliative Care for Alzheimer Disease," leading ethicists and clinicians from the United States and Europe explore ethical and scientific concerns about the diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer disease, challenges arising from applying palliative procedures to its symptoms, key philosophical and theological concepts central to our understanding of the disease and to end-of-life decisions, and the changing patterns of relevant medical, social, and economic policies. Cross-cultural, multidisciplinary, and state-of-the-art, this volume is a unique and important resource for bioethicists, clinicians, and policy makers everywhere.

Contributors: David A. Bennahum, M.D., University of New Mexico; Pierre Boitte, Ph.D., Catholic University of Lille, France; Roger A. Brumback, M.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Wim J. M. Dekkers, M.D., Ph.D., University Medical Centre Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Elizabeth Furlong, R.N., Ph.D., J.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Eugenijus Gefenas, M.D., Ph.D., Vilnius University, Lithuania; Bert Gordijn, Ph.D., University Medical Centre Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Amy M. Haddad, R.N., Ph.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Soren Holm, M.D., Ph.D., Dr.Med.Sci., University of Manchester; Franz J. Illhardt, D.D., Ph.D., Freiburg University; Rien Janssens, Ph.D., University Medical Centre Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Givi Javashvili, M.D., Ph.D., State Medical Academy of Georgia, Tbilisi; Judith Lee Kissell, Ph.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Gunilla Nordenram, D.D.S., Ph.D., Karolinska Institute, Stockholm; Richard L. O'Brien, M.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Marcel G. M. Olde Rikkert, M.D., Ph.D., University Medical Centre Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Winifred J. Ellenchild Pinch, R.N., Ed.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Patricio F. Reyes, M.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Anne-Sophie Rigaud, M.D., Ph.D., Hopital Broca, Paris; Linda S. Scheirton, Ph.D., Creighton University Medical Center; Jos V. M. Welie, M.Med.S., J.D., Ph.D., Creighton University Medical Center.

A clinical case-based handbook has a role in general clinicians' practice of caring for patients with serious or life-limiting illness. The explosion of the field of Hospice and Palliative Medicine impacts all physicians and healthcare providers. Fellowship trained s- cialists graduate in greater numbers annually. These and more seasoned specialists are now certified by the American Board of Medical Specialties as subspecialists. Research in this field is expanding in scope and quantity, and peer reviewed journals devoted to this work are multiplying. Moreover, peer reviewed journals in primary care and other subspecialties of medicine regularly include papers that focus on end-of-life care, quality of life issues, and symptom management. Overall then, access to clinical information necessary to care for patients with life-limiting illness is not only essential, but also increasingly available. This case-based clinical book aims to help with the actual practice of caring for patients with life-limiting illness. Numerous texts and journals exist to provide the data to inform care, yet there remains a need to find practical points and information about the practical application of the principles of palliative care. Thus, we hope that the cases, key points, and practical tips will help health care providers who are not experts already in palliative care in the care of patients with serious illness and challenging problems. Some chapters follow one patient through the course of an illness to highlight the applicability of palliative care throughout the disease process.

"NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER
In this wonderful book, Jon Katz, the owner of Bedlam Farm, learns once again about the unexpected places animals can take us. As trained hospice volunteers visiting homes and nursing facilities in upstate New York, Katz and his affectionate and intuitive border collie Izzy bring comfort and canine companionship to people who most need it. An eighty-year-old Alzheimer's patient smiles for the first time in months when she feels Izzy's soft fur. A retired logger joyfully remembers his own beloved dog. As Izzy bonds with patients and Katz focuses on their families, the author begins to come to terms with his own life, discovering dark realities he has never confronted. Meanwhile, Lenore, a spirited, bright-eyed black Labrador puppy, arrives at Bedlam Farm. Her genial personality and boundless capacity for affection steer Katz out of the shadows, rekindle his love of working with dogs, and restore his connection to the farm and the animals and people around him.

Fixing You: Neck Pain & Headaches is an easy-to-use self-help guidebook to fixing just about every type of neck pain. This is because, no matter what the diagnosis, painful issues of the neck have the same root causes; that of poor neck function and poor shoulder function. These root problems can be easily corrected through the exercises found in this book. Visit www.FixingYou.net for more information. Rick Olderman MSPT, CPT and Pilates instructor is a physical therapist with over a decade of experience working with difficult chronic and acute injuries. Rick's typical clients are those who have been to a variety of specialists and health care practitioners with little or no change in their pain. Often these clients feel significant if not complete relief in 1-3 sessions after using the Fixing You approach. How does Rick do this? Through assessing and correcting improper biomechanics at the root of all neck pain. Rick reveals his secrets in Fixing You: Neck Pain & Headaches to guide you in assessing your injuries through simple tests and then give you specific exercises correcting the biomechanics leading to your pain. Readers will also have FREE access to video clips of all assessments and exercises found in Fixing You: Neck Pain & Headaches. This ensures that you are both assessing and correcting your injuries properly. No other book has ever done so much to help you beat your pain.

There is increasing recognition of the burden of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with advanced incurable disease and the clinical, ethical, and philosophical challenges they may pose. With a growing elderly population and oncological therapies helping patients live longer with malignant disease, VTE is likely to be an ongoing problem. Whilst presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of VTE in general medicine is well established, its management within the palliative care setting is less clear-cut. Clinical presentation is often masked by other palliative symptoms, and symptoms can be consistent with those of other conditions; diagnosis is therefore underappreciated, and the condition can be difficult to manage.
Bringing together contributions from international experts in the field of VTE and palliative care, this book explores the increasing challenges faced by healthcare professionals when managing VTE in advanced disease. Topics such as the epidemiology and pathogenesis of the condition are discussed. It appraises the current evidence informing the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of VTE, with particular emphasis on its application to patients with incurable malignancy and non-malignant disease. Chapters are illustrated with key learning points and, where appropriate, case studies are presented to illustrate the decision-making processes that may occur when balancing the evidence with its impact on patient quality of life.
This practical resource is invaluable for healthcare professionals working in all areas of medicine where patients with advanced cancer and non-malignant disease are cared for.

A brilliant transplant surgeon brings compassion and narrative drama to the fearful reality that every doctor must face: the inevitability of mortality.
When Pauline Chen began medical school, she dreamed of saving lives. What she could not predict was how much death would be a part of her work. Almost immediately, she found herself wrestling with medicine's most profound paradox-that a profession premised on caring for the ill also systematically depersonalizes dying. Final Exam follows Chen over the course of her education and practice as she struggles to reconcile the lessons of her training with her innate sense of empathy and humanity. A superb addition to the best medical literature of our time.

The essence of nursing care continually exposes nurses to suffering. Although they bear witness to the suffering of others, their own suffering is less frequently exposed. This slim volume attempts to give voice to the suffering that nurses witness in patients, families, colleagues, and themselves. By making this suffering visible, the authors wish to honor it and to learn from it.
The audience includes nurses in all phases of training and practice - from students to educators to clinicians - in the wide array of settings and specialties in which nurses care for patients. The book offers nurses' colleagues in other professions - social workers, psychologists, chaplains, ethicists, and physicians - a rare window onto what it means to practice nursing.
Drs. Ferrell and Coyle are also the editors of Textbook of Palliative Nursing, 2nd ed (Oxford, 2006). Independently, they have worked more than 50 years in oncology nursing, caring for patients and working to improve the quality of care that patients receive.

Palliative and end of life care are concerned with the physical, social, psychological and spiritual care of people with advanced disease. It currently has a poorly developed research base, but the need to improve this is increasingly recognised. One of the reasons for the lack of research - and the variable quality of the research that is undertaken - is the difficulty of conducting research with very ill and bereaved people. Standard and well-established research methods may need to be adapted to work in this context. This means that existing research methods textbooks may be of limited use to palliative care practitioners seeking to do research for the first time, or to more experienced researchers wanting to apply their knowledge in palliative care settings.
This research methods textbook is the first to be written specifically for palliative care. It has been edited by four experienced palliative care academics with acknowledged expertise and international reputations in this field. It encompasses methods used in both clinical and health services research in palliative care, with sections on clinical, epidemiological, survey and qualitative research, as well as a section covering skills needed in any research project. Each chapter provides readers with an up to date overview of the research method in question, an understanding of its applicability to palliative care and of the particular challenges of using it in this setting. It is essential reading for all palliative care researchers.

Expert Nursing Care Has The Potential To Greatly Reduce The Burden And Distress Of Those At Life'S End And The Ability To Offer Support For The Many Physical, Psychological, Social, And Spiritual Needs Of Patients And Their Families. This Protocol Sets Forth The Evidence-Based Guidelines For Providing Appropriate End-Of-Life Care; Including Symptom Management; Family Issues And Intervention; Withholding And Withdrawing Life Support; Communication And Conflict Resolution; And Caring For The Caregiver.

Pain is a universal human experience, but acute and chronic pain has both physical and psychological effects. For that reason the World Health Organisation recognised pain relief as a basic human right. Orofacial pain is seen as particularly damaging - deemed 'inescapable' by its sufferers. This book takes a problem-based learning approach to orofacial pain, focusing on neuropathic trigeminal pain and persistent temporomandibular disorder. Topics covered include symptomology of several types of orofacial pain, pain progression and the psychosocial factors involved in pain. Each chapter includes detailed patient cases illustrating how to identify relevant physical changes and psychometric tests to measure levels of depression, anxiety and stress in the clinical situation. The book aims to enable clinicians to gain a better understanding of patient pain, to reassure the patient that they are understood and to build an effective pain management strategy, recognising the biopsychosocial nature of pain.