Resources: End of Life

Aging with Dignity
Provides the Five Wishes Living Will, legal in 33 states ($5 fee)

P.O. Box 1661

Tallahassee, FL 32302-1661
(888)594-7437

1-888-5-WISHES

Delaware End of Life Coalition
Network of people and resources to help the people of Delaware address the difficult issues surrounding end-of-life.

DyingWell
Defining Wellness through the End of Life - Resources for people facing life-limiting illness, their families, and their professional caregivers. Dr. Ira Byock, long time palliative care physician and advocate for improved end-of-life care, and a past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, provides written resources and referrals to organizations, web sites and books to empower persons with life threatening illness and their families to live fully.

Gundersen Lutheran End-of-Life Care
Programs that help health care providers implement advance directives in hospitals.
1900 South Ave.
La Crosse, WI 54601-5494
(608)782-7300 or (800)362-9567

Partnership for Caring: America's Voices for the Dying
Provides free, state-specific living wills.
PFC Publications - Publications Office
325 East Oliver St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
Hotline: (800)658-8898

Spanish Helpline: (877)658-8896

SeniorLAW Center
SeniorLAW Center provides a combination of legal services, community education, outreach, and advocacy, incorporating a comprehensive approach to representing and empowering its clients. SeniorLAW Center also acts as a vital link in the complex network of services available to Philadelphia's senior citizens. SeniorLAW Center has a telephone message in English and Spanish to assist clients who call outside normal business hours, and bilingual staff and attorneys are available to aid non-English speaking clients.

Survivors Of Suicide
For families and friends of suicide victims.

TACCC
(Lets Talk About Change, Challenges and Care at the End of Life)
In-services, seminars, lectures, conversations about navigating the healthcare system when chronically or terminally ill, advance planning (advance directives), communication with doctors, ethical dilemmas, grieving losses and issues for learning how to live well to the end of life.

Contact Paul B. Solnick, MD, Esq. at 215-836-4496 or Mary Jo Walheim at 610-667-6866

RELATED BOOKS

Dying Well : Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life
by Ira Byock, MD
Paperback - 299 pages (March 1998)
Riverhead Books, New York; ISBN: 1573226572

Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious Illness
by Joanne Lynn (Editor), Joan Harrold, Center to Improve Care of the Dying, Rosalynn Carter. Hardcover - 242 pages 1st edition (February 15, 1999)
Oxford University Press (Trade); ISBN: 0195116623

A comprehensive and authoritative guide to end of life care, written for a general audience by a team of specialists that includes some of the world's leading authorities in the field. This readable and sensible book should be read by every family caring for a loved one who is seriously ill, and by every medical professional working in a palliative care setting.

Kitchen Table Wisdom - Stories That Heal
by Naomi Rachel Remen, MD
Riverhead Books, New York (1996)

Cultural Issues in End-of-Life Decision Making, edited by Kathryn L. Braun, James H. Pietsch and Patricia Blanchette. Sage Publications Inc, 2000.

Facing Death: Where Culture, Religion and Medicine Meet, edited by Howard M. Spiro, Mary G. McCrea Curnen and Lee Palmer Wandel. Yale University Press, 1998.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1997.

Cancer Doesn't Have to Hurt: How to Conquer the Pain Caused by Cancer and Cancer Treatment, Pamela J. Haylock, Carol P. Curtiss. Hunter House, 1997.
Written by two oncology nurses, this book provides information about pain management for cancer patients and their families.

The Dying Process: Patients' Experiences of Palliative Care, Julie Lawton. Routledge, 2000.

Hospice and Palliative Care: Questions And Answers, Virginia F. Sendor and Patrice M. O'Connor. Scarecrow Press, 1997.
This book addresses many of the most common concerns of terminally ill patients and their families in an easy to read and easy to understand question and answer format.

Living With Dying: A Guide for Palliative Care, Cicely M. Saunders, Mary Baines and Robert Dunlop. Oxford University Press, 1995.

A Physician's Guide to Pain and Symptom Management in Cancer Patients: A guidebook for primary care physicians, internists, and oncologists , Janet L. Abrahm, M.D. John Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Although written for health care professionals, this is a good resource for patients and family members who want to make more informed decisions about their care. There are two separate bibliographies targeted at the needs of physicians and of patients and family members.

Ready to Live: Prepared to Die. A Provocative Guide to the Rest of Your Life, Amy Harwell , Harold Shaw Publications, 1995.
A book about being alive while preparing for death. The author was diagnosed with terminal cancer and set out to come to terms with her own illness. In the process she discovered the liberation that can come from living consciously in the present and accepting one's mortality as a part of life. The tone is confident and upbeat while remaining realistic about what's in store.

At Home With Dying: A Zen Hospice Approach, by Merrill Collett. 1999.

The Good Death : The New American Search to Reshape the End of Life, by Marilyn Webb. Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1999.

The Grace in Dying: How We Are Transformed Spiritually As We Die, by Kathleen Dowling Singh. Harper San Francisco, 2000.

How Different Religions View Death and Afterlife, by Christopher Jay Johnson, Marsha G. McGee. The Charles Press, 1998.

How to Survive the Loss of a Love, by Peter McWilliams, Harold Bloomfield and Melba Colgrove. Prelude Press, 1993.

Making Friends With Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality, by Judith L. Lief. Shambhala, 2001.

Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and Spiritual Approach by Larry Dossey. Bantam Books, 1989.

Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying, by Stephen Levine. Anchor Books, 1992.