Something to Think About

...You really don't need a doctor or nurse at the bedside when someone is dying. You need someone who understands the natural way people die and can educate and guide...

Hospice has worked with nursing facilities for many years now. Our relationship  and interactions with patients and their families is now better understood and better defined. That said, some nursing facilities...

So many factors affect the length of our labor to leave this world that it is imprudent to put a specific time frame on approaching death. The closest we can...

We’ve had over 40 years of providing end of life care to the community. And yes, it is acknowledgment of our work that there is a national Hospice month but...

Hospice can not take the experience and sadness of a loved one dying away. Our goal is to help the family create a sacred experience, to help their loved one...

The hours before actual death is very scary, a "I don't know what to do" time, for anyone present. Someone who knows the normal natural way a person dies can...

It is certainly not within our role to act if a person, in the pain of the moment, wants help in ending their life. In the “pain of the moment”...

Be the best hospice you can possibly be, provide the highest quality of care with the most compassionate, caring staff your area has to offer. Build a reputation within the...

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,...

For healthcare professionals it is often a balancing act to care for patients and then deal with the sense of futility that is triggered when they are doing their job...

There are other signs of approaching death that indicate a person with a disease (at any age) has weeks to live...

I can say that dementia doesn’t play by the rules for end of life. Withdrawing and sleeping can be present for years and does not signify approaching death. Not eating...

...Fortunately, I suppose, my mother is now bed-bound and we were able toget Hospice to help out, so she now fits the bill for a 'model patient'... but itstill seems...

From the moment of a diagnosis of a life threatening illness we begin grieving. We grieve not just the eventual losses that come with serious illness but the approaching death...

We often think because a person is facing the end of their life we have to do whatever they want us to, regardless of how it affects us. We treat...

I know “dying of a broken heart” is used frequently when death comes as a result of a tragic life event. I’m not sure that is actually why the person...

If you teach your families well about the approaching end of life there will be no problems with them understanding the labor of dying. Having someone you care about dying is...

Timing of the “hospice” talk is important as well as having an end of life talk before having the hospice talk. 

People with unpleasant personalities while living will still have unpleasant personalities while dying. It is just that the closer to death they get, the less energy they will have to...