Exploring Issues of Care, Dying and the End of Life

Exploring Issues of Care, Dying and the End of Life is a volume that brings together chapters covering a range of topics pertinent to the themes of care, dying and the end of life. A varied group of individuals, representing many different perspectives, came together in November 2010 to discuss these issues, and the result is a book of conference proceedings that deals with many themes. Two papers suggest that confronting one's own mortality may allow one to live a happier, more fulfilled life, while several authors make a good case for communication as a key factor in the provision of effective and optimal end of life care, although the communication does not necessarily take the form of words. The boundary between life and death is not as clear as many might assume, and death may take on a moral, in addition to a physical, status, while the dead body can be the repository of different meanings. Several chapters engage with the notion of the 'good death', which has different meanings at different times and in different locations, and is often defined in opposition to what may be perceived as a bad death. Dying alone is considered to mark a poor death, as does the lack of continuity in the provision of terminal care, or withholding a person's dignity and autonomy as a life approaches its end. The final chapters in the book tackle topics relevant to managing death, with one author suggesting that culture plays a role in the way a country plans its palliative care services, and others considering why palliative care workers do not experience burnout in the way many healthcare workers do and examining the politics of healthy living. This is a volume that offers something for practitioners and scholars who have an interest in the topics of dying and death, as well as for the interested general reader.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Sue Steele and Glenys Caswell Part 1: Facing up to Death Moral Death: Preliminary Considerations Lloyd Steffen Accepting One's Death as a Condition of One's Happiness Dennis R. Cooley Confronting Mortality: Reflections from Bedsides of the Dying and Workshops with the Living Fran Moreland Johns and Sue Steele On the Blurred Edge between Life and Death: Acting Ethical in Borderline Situations Julia Glahn A Semiotic Approach to Personal Death in Ethics Daniel Kersting Part 2: Communicating at the End of Life Drumming a Dying Friend Home: An Exploration of the Interconnectedness of Place and Music Helene Demers The Final Cut: End-of-Life Empowerment through Video Documentary Broderick Fox Code Levels in Cardiology: Who, When and How? Kathryn Brown and Sarah Weeks End-of-Life Discussions in Canada and the United Kingdom Nicole Stephen Spiritual Care at the End of Life Hadi Vakili and Parisa Goudarzi Part 3: Seeking the Good Death Drawing Lines: The Problems of Distinguishing Disability from Dying in PAS Law Susan M. Behuniak Koshkuri(Dying Alone) - Japanese Perspective Junko Otani Good Death in the Americas: Do North and South Americans Die Well Differently? Emily R. Deibert Understanding Dignity at the End of Life: The Experience of Palliative Care Patients Ana Patricia Hilario Grasping for the Missing Thread: On the (Non)Issue of Systematic Discontinuity in the Treatment of Patients at the End of Life Ellen Kristvik Part 4: Handling Death Palliative Care at the End of Life in Denmark: The Role of Culture in Explaining Denmark's Poor Performance James M. Hoefler A Family Affair? Managing Death in the Twenty-First Century Glenys Caswell Risk of Burnout and Protective Factors in Palliative Care Sandra M. Pereira and Antonio M. Fonseca The Politics of Healthy Longevity and Good Death: A Case of Pin Pin Korori in Japan Daisuke Watanabe

About the Author :
Sue Steele, MA, MFT, psychotherapist, USA. Glenys Caswell is a research fellow at the University of Nottingham in England. Her research interests centre upon the social contexts of death and dying, and she is currently involved in a research project investigating end of life care for people with dementia in the acute hospital setting.