Latest End-of-life Stories

Hospice Care Would Improve Quality of Life and Lower Costs, Say Authors Half of adults over age 65 made at least one emergency department (ED) visit in the last month of life, in a study led by a physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) and UCSF. Three quarters of ED visits led to hospital admissions, and more than two-thirds of those admitted to the hospital died there. In contrast, the 10 percent of study subjects who had enrolled in hospice care at least one month...

Online publisher MedSmart Members has released a free report entitled Death-by-ICU: End-of-Life Care in America. Noting the ethical issues and political demagoguery around this most challenging of healthcare issues, the report is focused more on the evidence of what dying patients themselves prefer when shown what’s actually entailed in intensive end-of-life treatments – which they unanimously rejected in a study comparing end-of-life treatment choices. Framingham, MA (PRWEB) May 30,...

A new webinar, Making the End-of-Life Decisions Meaningful will be hosted by the Society of Certified Senior Advisors and presented by Viki Kind. This educational webinar will help viewers create better end-of-life care plans and help explain how to do right by a person that is dying. Denver, CO (PRWEB) May 01, 2012 The Society of Certified Senior Advisors will be hosting its May educational webinar, Making the End-of-Life Decisions Meaningful presented by Viki Kind. Attendees will learn...

DALLAS, April 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- May marks a celebration of Older Americans Month, however leaders at Community Hospice of Texas believe no one is too young to plan ahead for the end of life. Devastating accidents, injuries or illnesses can happen at any age putting decisions about your care into someone else's hands. Today, Community Hospice of Texas launches "What's Your Plan?" to inspire and motivate Texans to plan ahead to ensure a quality life through the end...

OTTAWA, April 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Imagine, one day, without any warning, you find yourself in a hospital in a life-threatening situation, unable to communicate.  Who would speak for you and make health care decisions on your behalf? That's a question that all Canadians need to answer - and a recent poll indicates that most have not. The March 2012 Ipsos-Reid national poll was conducted to better understand whether Canadians are engaging in advance care planning, a process of...

“Aid-in-dying sets the gold standard for a good death,” says Robert Orfali author of the recently-published book Death with Dignity. Named “Best of 2011” by Kirkus Reviews, Orfali’s book provides an in-depth look at how we die in America today. Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) February 28, 2012 In his recently published book Death with Dignity Robert Orfali states that aid-in-dying sets the gold standard for end-of-life palliative care. Says Robert Orfali, “My wife Jeri wanted to...

Providing for fundamental human needs to people who are close to death is complex and sophisticated, but ultimately involves the integration of physical, psychological, social and spiritual elements, according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine by a group of international researchers. End-of-life care is a major public health issue, yet despite the inevitability of death, issues related to death and dying are often taboo. This study involved identifying the variety of...

The vast majority of patients with incurable lung or colorectal cancer talk with a physician about their options for care at the end of life, but often not until late in the course of their illness, according to a new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators published in the Feb. 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The researchers found that such belated conversations tend to occur under particularly stressful conditions – when patients have been admitted to a hospital...

A report commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, and published today in the journal Bioethics, claims that assisted suicide should be legally permitted for competent individuals who make a free and informed decision, while on both a personal and a national level insufficient plans and policies are made for the end of life. End-of-life decision-making is an issue wrapped in controversy and contradictions for Canadians. The report found that most people want to die at home, but few do;...

SEATTLE, Nov. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- John Hogan was a proud U.S. Army veteran who served toward the end of WWII in the South Pacific. He lived to tell about the lively homecoming he experienced as the ship he rode plowed under San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. As he sat dying of cancer in his Seattle home at age 92, stories about his time in the Army were among his most vivid memories. He told them well. The fact that he was a veteran was honored by his caregivers at Providence Hospice...