A WRAL Spotlight article addresses the importance of spiritual support during hospice care. The article notes that this support is important in: 1) Affirming that the individual’s life has had meaning and value. 2) Focusing on the importance of ensuring the patient dies an appropriate death. 3) Finding hope beyond the grave, such as finding […]
Forbes published “How to Choose Hospice Care” from Next Avenue contributor Liz Seegert. The story is part of a special report from The John A. Hartford Foundation. Seegert describes the roles of home hospice, hospital-based care, and stand-alone facilities. It also provides patients and families questions to consider including: Is the hospice Medicare certified? Is […]
“This is the beauty of my life,” Oprah Winfrey says, reflecting on her mother’s death. “There’s not a thing that happens to me, that I don’t look at it as a teaching, learning, experience.” She’d gotten a call from her sister Patricia, who thought her mother, Vernita Lee, was near the end of her life. […]
Death with dignity has wide public support, according to a Gallup poll, which found that 73% of Americans supported medical aid, as long as it is painless. Today, six states allow the practice under different names, but Next Avenue reports that patient experiences “run the gamut.” Dr. Jamie Wells, a medical ethicist and a director […]
In his career, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has spearheaded the Affordable Care Act and the opposition to the legalization of euthanasia. In an interview with the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging published with Next Avenue, Dr. Emanuel lays out an urgent need to improve quality of life, and explains why he thinks we’re […]
What if psychedelics could revolutionize the way you die?
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is in the unique position to support increased education for hospice and palliative caregivers throughout Washington, by moving the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA) forward in the Senate
The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management published “Hospice Underutilization in the U.S.: The Misalignment of Regulatory Policy and Clinical Reality.”
stories of the lived experience of handling a terminal diagnosis, focusing on what hospice and/or palliative care can do to allow the final days of a life to be peaceful and comfortable
When it comes to tissue donations, he asserts, “Tissue donation is a different matter. Tissues (e.g., skin, bone, heart valves, eyes, etc.) can be donated up to 24 hours following death, and the demand for tissues is also great.”
Clinical practice guidelines increasingly urge physicians to incorporate life expectancy into discussions about preventative care for older patients, and the study offers a window into patient sentiment in various scenarios.
This lack of hospice and palliative care services is felt by patients and families across the state.
A new study in the Journal of Palliative Medicine describes survival and end-of-life palliative care requirements for individuals with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
“African-Americans’ reliance on hope and faith in God’s healing power can be at odds with the physician’s need to share a terminal prognosis.”
“Patients may be concerned about burdening others,” and giving them space to be heard can be significant.
“Death doulas can fill care gaps at the end of life,”
“Could I serve my patients more fully if I paid more attention to what lies beyond their small self? Is the inner work of dying not about deciding how you want things arranged but instead about learning how to allow the small self to dissolve?” It’s one thing to read about this loss of the small self, he concludes, but another to experience it.
The end of life isn’t easy for most people, but for people of color it’s often even more difficult.