Something to Think About

The body gives us clues when the dying process begins. Learning to recognize changes in eating, sleeping, and socialization can help you understand what is happening and know when it's...

New hospice nurses often ask me what matters most. It isn't medications or procedures. Hospice nursing is about teaching, guiding, and helping families feel safe as they walk through one...

Most people don't know what to do or can do in the final hours before death. Here are gentle ways families and caregivers can create a meaningful goodbye and bring...

Hospice and palliative care are not the same—and understanding that difference matters. If the goal is comfort and a natural death, certain medical interventions no longer fit. Let’s talk about...

We educate families about the dying process, but too often no one is there when death actually happens...

We often replay the final moments of a loved one’s life — the sights, sounds, and emotions that felt so overwhelming. In truth, dying is rarely the peaceful scene we...

As death approaches, taking a blood pressure is one more unnecessary intrusion for the patient and for the family. Will what you learn affect anything?

Healing is not just about the physical body. We are mental and emotional beings that have a physical body.

It is hard to comprehend that our special person will die no matter what we do. No matter how many treatments, how much medicine, or how much food we give,...

Dame Cicely Saunders — an important and influential physician, nurse, social worker, and writer in end of life care — established a specific facility to care for those people that...

Death from disease and old age doesn’t just happen. There are signs and changes that begin occurring months before death arrives. You can use those signs as a reference indicating...

Some illnesses are curable. Some are uncertain. And some can’t be fixed—no matter what we do. Knowing which type you or your loved one is facing can help you choose...

End of life care is about bonding and developing trust — not just with the patient, but with the family and the caregiver, as well...

Knowledge is important for the person dying because they are processing their life on many levels. It is important for the watchers because it is our final opportunity to connect,...

Today most hospices have some sort of a hospice house arrangement. It may be in a designated portion of a nursing facility or in a free standing building of its...

Working with end of life all these years has shown me how special each day is. It has also shown me the value and the gift of living, doing, and...

Hospice began as an ideal, a step outside of the medical model. It was generally operated by volunteers and it was financed and maintained by community fundraising and donations...

How does a person feel as a hospice patient?  Everyone is waiting on them, they are unable to do things for themselves. They have to wear diapers and probably don't want...

Part of "selling" hospice is to create trust and a bond during that first meeting. It takes people skills in addition to knowledge of hospice benefits...

Families are stressed and frightened and by the time they finally reach out for hospice services, they have already wanted and needed them for days if not weeks.

As end of life approaches, people start looking at their life; what they’ve accomplished, not done, who they have touched, interacted with, and the relationships they have or have not built...