“I find it is just a privilege and a humbling experience to be where life enters this world and when life leaves it.” These words were said by a former nurse, now a death doula, Carmen Barnsley, who has had her own experience with death when her son died at the age of five months. […]
Changing the Conversation Around End of life Care
This is Palliative Care Week, and according to Palliative Care Australia, while 82 percent of Australians think it’s important to talk with family about their end of life care wishes, only 28 percent have done so. In fact, less than 5 percent of Australians have end of life plans, and about 45 percent die without a […]
What’s Really Important at the End of Life
The conversation with family and loved ones about our wishes for the end of our life, is a difficult one to have. However it is vital that we think about this subject, and openly discuss it with loved ones so they are aware of those wishes, and will know exactly to do when the need […]
Dear Life – Treatment of the Elderly and Dying
In a moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions, frailty and dementia, over-treatment and escalating costs. Ours is a society in which ageism, often disguised, threatens to turn the elderly […]
Prepare For a Good End of Life
Judy MacDonald Johnston is not a geriatrician, her knowledge of having a good end of life comes from her experiences, and her knowledge from a qualitative study done in the USA. In her TED X talk she relates her time with Shirley and Jim, married for 68 years, and facing their final days. They had […]