ABOUT DIANE BURNSIDE MURDOCK'S THE NEW ART OF DYING How would you like to die? Only you can answer this. Whatever your age, cultural identity, ethnic background, or beliefs, read this book if you want to talk about dying but don't know what you want to say. Each of us has our own special feelings, hopes, fears, and desires about this universal issue. These days, dying can happen in many different ways because of high-intensity therapies that prolong living and postpone dying. The proliferation of choices, possibilities, and alternatives can be overwhelming. The New Art of Dying is a constructive and thorough guide to empower you to make your own choices. There is no one answer for dying correctly. There's no wrong answer either. Each of us wants to get it right and do it our own way. The New Art Of Dying is a handbook for our time. This step-by-step guide to making your own choices teaches: - How to discover who you are and live life to its end - How to deal with dying in your own unique way - How to make decisions about life-sustaining treatments and procedures, palliative care, and legal documents on advance care planning - How to keep unpredictable problems from upsetting what you want - How to give loved ones the gift of caring for you the way you wish It is progressive about patient rights, making you the central figure and enabling you to experience dying the way you have experienced life- by being in charge of your own destiny. It's for you only, a continuing reference and source of inspiration. An expose on the American way of dying - penetrating and passionate...it speaks the truth. Scrupulously confronting the many options to choose from whether medical, palliative or legal - the problems we face and what can go wrong. Revelatory, helping you get at your attitudes on dying coming from your background and beliefs to create a personal end-of-life experience.

Having a rare blood type, after a 20 year wait for a successful transplant, transplant survivor, author David Fraser Wright learned that having a sense of humor about medicine and medical situations is as important as the technical knowledge and loving care one receives along the way.

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.

Intensive care units (ICUs) provide comprehensive, advanced care to patients with serious or life-threatening conditions and consequently, a significant amount of end-of-life care (EOLC). Indeed, approximately 20% of deaths in the U.S. are associated with an ICU stay, and nearly half of U.S. patients who die in hospitals experience an ICU stay during the last 3 days of life. Despite the commonality of the ICU experience, ICU patients typically suffer from a range of distressing symptoms such as pain, fatigue, anxiety, and dyspnea, causing families significant distress on their behalf. Thus, there is a growing imperative for better provision of palliative care (PC) in the ICU, which may prevent and relieve suffering for patients with life threatening illnesses. Effective palliative care is accomplished through aggressive symptom management, communication about the patient and family's physical, psychosocial and spiritual concerns, and aligning treatments with each patient's goals, values, and preferences. PC is also patient-centered and uses a multidisciplinary, team-based approach that can be provided in conjunction with other life-sustaining treatments, or as a primary treatment approach. Failure to align treatment goals with individual and family preferences can create distress for patients, families, and providers. If implemented appropriately, palliative care may significantly reduce the health care costs associated with intensive hospital care, and help patients avoid the common, non-person centered treatment that is wasteful, distressing, and potentially harmful. Due to the success of many PC programs, administrators, providers, and accrediting bodies are beginning to understand that palliative care in the ICU is vital to optimal patient outcomes.

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.

About her career as a Hospice Nurse and her book, Margaret Dodson says: I have been honored to share in the living, dying, and deaths of the most extraordinary "ordinary" people. I have entered into lives months away from their dying and moments away from their dying. Each person I have met in this work has been etched into my heart; how could I help but be touched by them? I realized that I needed to go away for a few days with a list of the people and families I had cared for during the year, and I needed time to spend my "last visit" with them privately to say goodbye. As I sat looking at the sea and feeling so full of these stories, they began to pour from me onto these pages. I would look at a name and I was transported not only to that person but also to that family, their home, the conversations, the intimacies, the suffering, the peace and even the joy. It would be presumptuous to say I have become wise by these experiences, but my gratitude for this enrichment is boundless. Much of the time I do not feel wise; yet, as the years have passed and the stories accumulate, I do feel as though I have acquired lessons to share. The lessons Margaret has learned are this book.