Caregiver Fear and Frustration When Food Is Rejected
As caregivers, we want so much to do the “right thing” for our special person. We know death is coming but still try to do all we can to stop...
Something to Think About: a blog on end of life
Forcing Food
How To Talk About Approaching Death
Our job as an end of life specialist is to address the elephant in the room, to be direct and honest in the gentlest way possible. We are not doing...
In This Time of Great Fear, DYING 101
People don’t die like they do in the movies—alive one minute, saying something profound and dead the next. There is a way that the body dies. A way it is...
What Comes Next? Dementia at End of Life
Dementia is like a road map with many, many roads that eventually lead into a city. Each road is different, each road is of varying lengths and offers various views...
Developing End of Life Expertise
You have to walk the walk before you can talk the talk. Learn from your patient/family interactions. At the same time read everything you can get your hands on...
Alzheimer's, Cancer and Hospice
Dementia isn’t a terminal illness in that it doesn’t have a limited prognosis. It is like dying from old age, it takes longer. Alzheimer’s, or any form of dementia, is...
I Hear You, But I Don't Understand
...I remember being with my mother in my hospice Medical Director’s office. He was explaining to my mother his medical findings as they related to her illness. I, being a...
My Personal Integrity Was Wounded Tonight
When hospice began it was outside of the medical model. It provided end of life care based on quality, not quantity, of life. It recognized when physical healing couldn't be...
Calories Count
When living with a life threatening illness we are eating for two---our physical body and our disease. In most cases the disease eats before we do. If we don’t eat,...
DYING Young or Old, The Signs Are The Same
There are other signs of approaching death that indicate a person with a disease (at any age) has weeks to live...
THIS IS HOW PEOPLE DIE - my latest film
My message throughout all this time has been to educate, educate, educate. Educate anyone who will listen about how people die. To help people understand how death comes, what it...
Food and the Dying Process
As a person enters the dying process, months before death occurs, they will gradually stop eating. Months before death they will stop eating meats, then fruits and vegetables, then soft...