
Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
- All posts
- addiction
- advance directive
- alzheimers
- anticipation
- anticipatory grief
- Approaching Death
- assisted care
- assisted death
- Assisted Living
- bereaved
- Bereavement
- burnout
- BY YOUR SIDE A Guide for Caring for the Dying at Home
- cancer
- caregiver
- caregiver fatigue
- caregiver support
- caregiving at end of life
- children
- Clinician
- comfort care
- covid 19
- Death
- death and dying
- death cafe
- death call
- death care
- death doula
- death education
- death midwife
- death of a pet
- death ritual
- dementia
- dementia doula
- diagnosis
- Director of Education
- disease
- DNR
- doctors
- dying
- dying pet
- dying process
- Dynamics of Dying
- Eating or not eating
- elderly
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
- end of life
- end of life doula
- euthanasia
- family
- family caregiver
- father
- Fear
- Feeding
- Financial records
- Food
- food at end of life
- Funeral
- gift
- Gone From My Sight
- graduating from hospice
- gratitude
- Grief
- Grief Counselor
- grief support
- Guilt
- holidays
- Home Care
- home death
- home health
- home healthcare
- Hospice
- Hospice Blue Book
- hospice care
- hospice chaplain
- hospice education
- hospice end of life care
- hospice for pets
- hospice nurse
- hospice nurses
- hospice patient
- hospice physician
- hospice referral
- Hospice Social Worker
- Hospice Staff
- hospice volunteer
- hospital
- How Do I Know You ?
- How Do I Know You? Dementia at the End of Life
- Hydration or dehydration
- infant death
- labor
- labor at end of life
- life limiting
- life support
- loss
- media
- Medicade
- Medicare
- medication
- medications
- memory care
- midwife
- moment of death
- morphine
- mother
- My Friend I Care
- narcotics
- New Rules For End Of Life Care
- No Code
- Not Eating
- nurse
- Nursing facility
- Nursing home
- nutrition
- Old Age
- older pet
- orientation
- oxygen
- pain
- pain at end of life
- pain management
- pain relief
- palliative care
- palliative sedation
- pandemic
- personality
- Pet death
- Pet illness
- physician
- podcast
- POLST
- prepare for death
- quality of life
- religion
- Retirement Home
- sacred
- self care
- sleep
- Social Worker
- spanish grief literature
- stages of grief
- Suicide
- Supervisors
- support
- terminal
- terminal agitation
- terminal diagnosis
- terminal restlessness
- The Eleventh Hour
- The Final Act of Living
- This Is How People Die
- Time
- Time of Death
- trauma
- treatments
- volunteer
- volunteers
- washing the body
- widow
- wife
- Will
- You Need Care Too
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...
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...
...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...
Often dying looks painful to the people watching. Dying is a struggle to get out of the body. There are sounds that ordinarily would indicate discomfort but, when a person...
...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...
This is the story that came to mind when I decided to write a blog for National Social Work month. Social work, to me, is about saying the right words...
Often after a person dies we forget that there is no perfect relationship, that there are easy times and difficult times. Somehow once a person dies we elevate them to...
Why make your mother’s remaining time be unhappy and with more discontent than is already there due to age and illness? Being old is hard work. Our thinking processes aren't...
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...
At 8:17pm she took one more breath and then at 8:18 there was one more which I describe as hot caramel pouring onto vanilla ice cream. It was the most...
What I have discovered is that a family member dying can bring a family together. It can be their finest moment of closeness and comfort. But for other families it...
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...
If the signs are there, get the referral and let a hospice professional determine if Hospice is appropriate. Three things I look for to tell me if it is time...
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...
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...
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...
There have been many changes in hospice care since it began. Some for the better, some not so much. What I am suggesting as representing a “good” hospice is becoming...