
Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
- All posts
- addiction
- advance directive
- alzheimers
- Anger
- anticipation
- anticipatory grief
- Approaching Death
- assisted care
- assisted death
- Assisted Living
- Barbara Karnes
- 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
- cna
- comfort care
- communication
- covid 19
- Dame Cicely Saunders
- 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 looks different than expected
- 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
- grieving
- 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 myths
- 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
- joy
- labor
- labor at end of life
- life limiting
- life support
- loss
- media
- Medicade
- medical visits
- Medicare
- medication
- medications
- memory care
- midwife
- mindfulness
- 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
- peace
- personality
- Pet death
- Pet illness
- physician
- podcast
- POLST
- prepare for death
- quality of life
- religion
- Retirement Home
- RN
- sacred
- self care
- seniors
- signs of approaching death
- sleep
- Social Worker
- spanish grief literature
- stages of grief
- sudden death
- 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
- vigil
- volunteer
- volunteers
- washing the body
- widow
- widowhood
- wife
- Will
- You Need Care Too
Tell her honestly what you are feeling and ask for help. Just FYI: she can sign on for hospice and if she felt she needed to go to the emergency...
When we begin the gradual dying process our personality tends to intensify. If we are an angry person we will get angrier. If we have a gentle personality we will...
Not everyone who is dying has pain. Disease causes pain. If pain is not present, a narcotic is not appropriate (except a tiny bit can ease labored breathing is present...
When doctors and healthcare professionals place a number on how long someone has to live they are doing that person a disservice.
We start off alone, then we have Mom and Dad, then family, friends, then the world of school, activities,and involvement in the bigger world around us. When we are leaving, we...
Anger in caregiving generally comes from a place of frustration, of fear, of sadness, of tiredness. All sorts of feelings with no outlet so they come bursting out.
Dying patterns are centered around food, sleep and socialization. Assess those three areas and you can track the dying process.
The heart is still beating even when our less sophisticated machines don’t register them. The breathing will get slower and slower and the time between breaths will get longer and...
In the months and weeks before death, medical intervention and medical tools are an active part of care. Pain management, skin care, mouth care,and bowel and urine care are all...
Most of the time this restlessness, this agitation is not destructive. It is not severe. If the movements become thrashing about or hurtful and become a danger to the person...
I'm going to start by being blunt: hospice, end of life workers, hospitals, and nursing facilities make their money only as long as the people they serve are alive.. They...
In the days to weeks before gradual death occurs a person realizes, at last, that they are dying. They may not share that realization with anyone, but they know. If...
As for the “signs of what is to come” for someone who is young and dying, those signs are also the same for everyone, young and old. People dying from...
I know that dementia doesn’t play by the rules of approaching death. The guidelines relating to food, sleep and sociability don’t fit with dementia. I know that I am seeing...
Hospice provides care and services for people in the last six months of their life. A doctor must specify, in his/her best opinion, that this person has less than six...
Taking care of someone at the end of life is different from taking care of someone who is going to get better—-but most people don’t know that either. Unless we...
We human beings are complicated creatures. We approach death in the way we have approached living and according to our personality. Our belief systems are part of that living. Sometimes...
I think we healthcare workers rely on our words as our offering. Explanations, suggestions, instructions, even using words to offer condolences and trying to comfort. And yes, words are a...
Filling out an Advance Directive when you are healthy is different than filling one out when you are elderly or living with a serious illness...
Our base nature comes out when we are in pain, other worldly, and on high doses of all kinds of medications. We are unconsciously expressing the terrible situation we were...
Number one, we are all going to die at some point. Of course the operative words here are “at some point.” If we are told death will be the outcome...