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A site about death, dying, grief, and loss; about caregiving or living with chronic or life-threatening illness; and about positive and realistic approaches to aging. Reading up on end-of-life activities often surprises people, kick-starting their interest in activities that are better done before they are nearly pushing up daisies. Even bereavement and loss may help us grow. And there are links to practical advice here for each step along the way.
CATEGORIES, in alphabetical order
See also Subjects/sections within categories
• Advance directives, living wills, and other practical matters Wills, trusts, and other aspects of end-of-life decision making
• Aging with grace Enjoying the golden years
• Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia and memory loss
• Autism spectrum disorders Autism, Asperger's syndrome, savant syndrome, and others
• The Beneficial Effects of Life Story and Legacy Activities
• Bereavement, grief, and recovery
• Blog posts on this website, Index of (by category)
• Books and film to help you make it through the night (Recommended reading, viewing, and listening
• Cardiovascular disease and prevention (Heart and coronary conditions and care)
• Caregivers, caregiving, long-term care and caregiver burnout
• Charitable giving and volunteering (and donating your body or body parts)
• Coping with cancer
• Coping with chronic, rare, and invisible diseases and disorders
• Death, dying, and end-of-life care
• Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other forms of mental illness
• Difficult endings (including suicide and homicide, especially gun violence)
• Disability
• Downsizing, decluttering, moving, and other hard-to-face realities
• Drugs, surgery, procedures, tests, and medical care
• Eulogies and video tributes (celebrating a life)
• Funerals, cremation, home funerals, green burial, memorial services (plus cemeteries, coffins, headstones, memorials)
• Helping a dying friend (and ways to help the dying)
• HIPAA, electronic health records, patient privacy and safety
• Hospice care and palliative care (end-of-life care--to comfort, not to cure)
• How storytelling can aid in healing
• Life story writing (the healing powers of narrative)
• Long-term care and long-term care insurance
• Managing living arrangements for elderly and disabled (home-based and facility-based housing and care options, helpful devices and supports)
• Managing your health, pain, and health care costs (plus hospitals, ER, urgent care, and hospitalization)
• Medical mysteries, patient and caregiver stories, infections and infectious diseases
• Music for funerals, wakes, and memorial services
• Obituaries and other forms of tribute
• Order DYING, A BOOK OF COMFORT
• Prayers, poems, and meditations
• Recommended reading, viewing, and listening
• Reducing medical errors
• Reforming the U.S. health care system (understanding the issues reform must address)
• Retirement 101
• Selections from DYING, A BOOK OF COMFORT
• Single payer and other models for health care financing
• Social Security and veterans benefits, pensions, and annuities
• The stages of grief
• Substance abuse and recovery (and other forms of addiction)
• Writing an ethical will (a legacy letter)
• Vaccines and vaccinations (immunization)
• Index of site
• Order DYING, A BOOK OF COMFORT
Advance directives, living wills, Medicare, and other practical matters
---Getting your affairs in order
---Advance directives, POLSTs, MOLSTs, living wills, health care (medical) proxies
---Wills, trusts, legacies, and estates
---Documents and information to keep together, easily findable (personal, financial, and legal)
---Documents to protect your and your survivors' rights and wishes
---End-of-life planning and document storage sites
---Planning for long-term care and end-of-life preferences
---Financial planning 101
---Your literary estate
---Planning, handling, and protecting your digital estate
---Eldercare planning resources
---Elder law, elder protection, and pension rights organizations
---Preventing elder abuse and scams (and being aware of senior guardianship problems)
---End of life planning for pets
Aging with grace, spirit, wisdom and safety
And dealing with some common problems in aging
---Positive aging (finding fulfillment in the golden years)
---Enjoying lifelong learning (MOOCs, OLLI, Great Courses, TED talks, and the like)
---Reminiscence, life review, and life storytelling
---Managing modern life (and electronics)
---Facing tough issues
---Connection? or loneliness?
---Traveling in retirement (and otherwise)
---The new landscape of intimate relationships
---Managing a healthy weight
---Exercise
---Preventing falls
---Preventing and dealing with frailty
---Nutrition
---Memory
---Cognitive skills and development
---Bladder control and related problems
---Knee replacement and other fixes for body parts
---Research on aging
---Books and movies about our new peer group
---If I had my life to live over
Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia and memory loss
---Alzheimer's disease
---Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
---Lewy body dementia
---Dementia signs, symptoms, testing and diagnosis
---Dementia support groups and research organizations
---Blogs about dementia
---Helpful books about dementia
---Films, documentaries, and shorts about dementia[Back to Top]
Bereavement, grief, and recovery
---How to comfort the grieving
---Grieving the loss of a child
---Children's grief
---Books about grieving the loss of a child
---Grieving the loss of a pet
---Grief support groups
---Complicated and disenfranchised grief and ambiguous loss
---Death, dying, and grief in the age of social media
---Grief, bereavement, and mourning blogs, sites, forums, and online discussion groups
---Selections about grief and recovery (from Pat's anthology, Dying: A Book of Comfort)
---Understanding bereavement, grief, and recovery
Books and films to help you make it through the night
• Children's books about death and loss
• Movies about aging
• Movies about death and dying, loss and grief
• Fiction about aging, illness, and dementia
• Recommended reading lists on this website
• Stories of courage, inspiration, and other coping attitudes
• Just plain interesting!
BOOKS AND RECOMMENDED READING
---Aging and elders, books and movies about
---Aging, illness, and dementia, Books about
---Cancer, Books about
---Caregivers and caregiving, Books by, for, and about
---Caregiving for elders, Books about
---Chronic or invisible diseases and conditions, Books about
---Complex and difficult endings (A reading list)
---Death, dying, loss, and grief, Books for adults about
---Death and loss, Children's picture books about
---Dementia, Books about
---Ethical wills (legacy letters), Books to help you write
---Family-directed funerals, Books and stories about
---Grieving the loss of a child, Books about
---Heart attacks, stroke, and other cardiovascular disease, Books and other resources about
---Medical reference shelf, For your
---Medical reference books, general
---Medical and healthcare professionals, Books about the work and lives of
---Medicine, health care, and caregiving, Books on -- for patients and caregivers
---Suicide (and surviving a suicide), Books about
---Traveling with limited mobility and other disabilities, Books about Vaccines and immunization, Books about
Books and movies about aging, illness, disability
---Books and movies about aging and elders
---Films about aging
---Fiction about aging, illness, and dementia
---Memoirs of coping with chronic, rare, or invisible diseases, including mental health
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (organized by category)
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (organized by authors' last name)
---Books about chronic or invisible diseases and conditions
---Books about cancer
---Healing: Stories of courage, inspiration, and other coping attitudes (short pieces, online)
---Helpful books about dementia
---Books by, for, and about caregivers and caregiving
---Books on medicine, health care, and caregiving -- for patients and caregivers
---For your medical reference shelf
Books and movies about death and dying, grief and loss
---Best adult books about death, dying, loss, and grief
---Books about grieving the loss of a child
---Children's picture books about death and loss
---Movies about death, dying, funerals, farewells, departures
Cardiovascular disease (and prevention)
---General information about cardiovascular health and disease
---Preventing and surviving heart attacks
---Preventing, treating, and surviving strokes
---Heart disease in women
---Heart surgery
---Pros and cons of various tests, treatments, habits
---The statin wars
---Hypertension and blood pressure issues
---Evidence-based cardiovascular care
---Eminence-based medicine
---Books and other resources about heart, stroke, and other cardiovascular disease
Caregivers, caregiving, long-term care, and caregiver burnout
---Caring for patients with dementia
---Caring for caregivers (preventing caregiver burnout)
---Online communities for caregivers
---Other helpful organizations
---Key documents caregivers may need
---Books by, for, and about caregivers
---Books about caregiving for elders
---Books about medicine and healthcare--to help patients and caregivers understand the professionals they will depend on
---General medical reference books
Charitable giving and volunteering
(and donating your body or body parts)
---Volunteering
---Charity ratings
---Tips on charitable giving
---Rethinking charity
---Teaching the next generation about giving
---Practicing philanthropy: giving to make a difference
---Worst practices in charity world
---Donating your body or body parts
---Organ and tissue transplants
COPING WITH CANCER
---Books about cancer
---Memoirs about struggling with cancer
---General information and approaches to treatment
---Avoiding overtreatment or unnecessary and possibly harmful treatment
---Chemotherapy
---Immunotherapy
---Fighting cancer by eating the right food
---Tools for coping
---Cancer research, education, and advocacy organizations
---Researching cancer (where to look for info and advice)
---Cancer support groups
---Finding support for the family
---Finding financial support for cancer care
---Make-a-Wish and other wish fulfillment organizations
---Comforting a person who has cancer
---Finding hospitals and cancer centers
---Cancer by the numbers (e.g., survival rates, incidence)
---Checking out clinical trials
---Understanding the debate on cancer-related health care reform and health policy
---Types of cancer, sites listing and describing
---Specific types of cancer
---Bone cancer
---Brain tumors, brain cancer, and aneurysms (no, aneurysms aren't cancers)
---Breast cancer
---Colon and colorectal cancer
---Kidney cancer
---Leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and other blood cancers
---Lung cancer
---Melanoma and other skin cancers
---Multiple myeloma
---Ovarian, cervical, and other gynecological/reproductive system cancers
---Pancreatic cancer
---Prostate cancer
---Rare types of cancer
[Back to Top]
Coping with chronic, rare, and invisible diseases and disorders
---Rare and undiagnosed diseases and conditions
---Memoirs of coping with chronic, rare, or invisible diseases, including mental health problems
---Orphan drugs: the good, the bad, and the greedy
---Helpful resources, including organizations
---Support groups for patients with chronic, rare, and invisible diseases and disorders
---Coping with invisible chronic illnesses and conditions
Death, dying, and end-of-life care
---Helping a dying friend
---Improving end-of-life care
---Practical aspects of end-of-life care and decision-making
---Saying goodbye
---When is someone legally dead?
---End-of-life planning and choices for pets
---Complex and difficult endings--suicide, homicide, physician-assisted suicide, violence (including domestic violence), sudden death (from accidents and otherwise), dementia and other forms of lingering illness
---Books about death and dying (including the "good death" and dying with dignity)
---Hospice care and palliative care (don't wait too late!)
---Bereavement, grief, and recovery
---Stages of grief ("The only way out is through.")
---Selections from DYING: A Book of Comfort
---Near-death experiences (crossing over)
---Death Cafes (events, not venues--conversations about end-of-life concerns)
---Conversations about dying
---Statistics about death, mortality, long-term care, hospice care, and palliative care
---Movies about death and dying
---Order DYING: A Book of Comfort
---Funerals, cremation, home funerals, green burial, memorial services
---Music for funerals and memorial services
Depression and other forms of mental illness
Including bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), OCD, schizophrenia, and PTSD
---General help and information
---Approaches to treatment
---The system: Issues affecting the treatment of mental illness
---ADHD, ADD, and other problems with inconsistent (sometimes hyperfocused) attention
---Anxiety and phobias
---Bipolar disorder (manic depressive illness)
---Borderline personality disorder
---Children's mental health
---Cutting and self-harm
---Depression, including Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
---Eating disorders
---Marcissistic personality disorder
---Obsessive-compulsive disorder (O.C.D.),
including hoarding behavior
---Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
---Schizophrenia
---Substance abuse
---Mental health organizations
Difficult endings
Complex, difficult, and intentional deaths
---End-of-life decision-making
---End-of-life decision-making in the critical care unit
---Death with dignity (assisted-dying laws, etc.)
---Assisted dying and VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking)
---Euthanasia (physician-assisted dying)
---Suicide and suicide prevention
---Books about suicide (and surviving a suicide)
---Helpful organizations and online resources
---Useful general links
---How to tell children their parent is dying
---Grieving the loss of a child
---Complex and Difficult Endings: A Reading List
Disability
---Blogs and websites about traveling with disability
---Changing attitudes about disability
---Traveling with limited mobility and other disabilities
---The legal and financial aspects of living with a disability
---Organizations that help artists with disabilities
---Memoirs about living with a disability
ON ANOTHER PAGE:
---Assistive devices, remodeling, and other ways to enable independent living
Downsizing, decluttering, moving, and other hard-to-face realities
---Downsizing and decluttering (letting go of things)
---Organizing and dealing with things and information
---Selling or recycling books, etc.
---Selling and renting stuff online
---Recycling electronics and other stuff
---Evaluating your "valuables"
---Garage, estate, and yard sales, etc.
---Giving your stuff to a good cause
---Senior move managers and other specialists
---Cleaning and household tips
---Being, or trying to help, a hoarder
Drugs, surgery, procedures, and medical care (cost and quality)
DRUGS AND PROCEDURES
--- Buying drugs and procedures smartly, cheaply, safely
---Patient assistance programs (for buying medications)
---Fighting drug price gouging and making drugs more affordable
---Generic drugs: overpricing, shortages, and other issues
--- Drugs, Big Pharma, conflicts of interest, and why U.S. patients pay too much for medication
---Decoding health care prices
---Reducing medical costs
---Questioning drug claims and managing medication side effects
---Orphan drugs: The good, the bad, and the greedy
---'Right to try' laws, compassionate use of experimental drugs (pro and con)
SURGERY
---What to know and do before surgery
---How to research surgeons and hospitals
---How to help children deal with surgery
---Heart surgery
---Knee replacement surgery
---Hip replacement surgery
---Memoirs and reflections of surgeons and about surgery
---High costs, adverse events, bad practices, other problems with surgery
Eulogies and video tributes (and the beneficial effects of life story telling)
---Obituaries and other forms of tribute
---How putting events into a story may aid the healing process
---The beneficial effects of life story and legacy activities
---Good interview questions for the family
---Healing stories and storytelling organizations and sites
---Stories, healing, and self-understanding (a booklist)
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (a reading list, organized by category)
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (a reading list, organized by authors' last name)
---Narrative medicine and medical narrative
---On dealing with variance from "normality"
---Organizations that assist artists with disabilities
---Telling your story (writing our memoirs, creating a family history, genealogical resources, oral histories, books to get started writing your own or someone else's life story--on my Pat McNees website)
Funerals, cremation, memorial services, and other alternatives
---Advice from the Federal Trade Commission
---Veterans death, burial, and survivor benefits
---Funerals, memorial services, and other ceremonies for the dead
---Music for funerals, wakes, and memorial services
---Green funerals
---Home funerals and family-directed funerals
---Books and stories about family-directed funerals
---Farewells to veterans
---Cremation and crematories
---Coffins, caskets, and urns
---Cemeteries, gravesites, headstones, and memorials
---Online memorials and high-tech headstones (locating burial sites with a smartphone and other digital secrets)
---Organ, tissue, and whole-body donation
---Helpful death-related organizations
---Movies about death, dying, funerals, farewells, and departures
HIPAA, electronic health records, and patient privacy
---Electronic health records (EHR--issues, problems, information)
---The HIPAA privacy rule
---Patient privacy and related issues
Hospice care and palliative care
---Improving end-of-life care
---About end-of-life care
---Frequently asked questions
---How medical professionals can help terminally ill patients prepare to die
---Managing the cost of dying and end-of-life care
---Hospice care (care to comfort, not to cure--for those who are dying)
---The differences between hospice care and palliative care
---Palliative care
---Finding hospice care
---Issues with for-profit hospices
---Blogs about hospice care and palliative care
---Books about hospice and palliative care
---Organizations helpful about end-of-life care)
How storytelling can aid in healing (memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival)
---Good interview questions for the family
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (a reading list, organized by category)
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (a reading list, organized by authors' last name)
---Fiction featuring characters with disabilities
Life story writing (the healing powers of narrative)
---Good interview questions for the family
---Healing stories and storytelling organizations and sites
---Stories, healing, and self-understanding (a booklist)
---Memoirs of illness, crisis, disability, differentness, and survival (a reading list, organized by category)
---Narrative medicine and medical narrative
---On dealing with variance from "normality"
---Organizations that assist artists with disabilities
Managing living arrangements for elderly and disabled
---Senior housing options (the big picture)
---Downsizing, decluttering, moving, and other hard-to-face realities
HOME-BASED SOLUTIONS
---Co-Housing
---Aging in Place (naturally occurring retirement centers, or NORCs)
---The Village Movement: Aging-in-place supported communities
---Continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs)
FACILITY-BASED SOLUTIONS
---The Eden Alternative and The Green House Project
---Memory care
---Nursing homes, old-style and new (including Green Houses)
---Long-term acute care hospitals
HELPFUL DEVICES, SUPPORTS, APPROACHES
---Senior health problems, surgery, aches and pains
---Assistive devices, remodeling, and other ways to enable independent living
MISCELLANEOUS
---Legal and financial decision-making
---Addressing problems of homelessness
---End-of-life decision-making in the critical care unit
Managing your health, pain, medications, and health care costs
---Buying drugs and procedures smartly, cheaply, safely
---Fighting drug price gouging and making drugs more affordable
---Questioning drug claims and managing medication side effects
---Finding prices for medical procedures
---Sites providing information about hospital charges
---Managing medications, tests, procedures, and treatments
---Medications, tests, procedures, and treatments to question or avoid
---Telemedicine and virtual medical visits
---The truth about private screening tests
---Managing hospitalization and after
---Reducing medical costs
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
---Good e-resources for patients/consumers
---Patients sharing info and opinions about health care services
---Basic healthcare explanations
---Making wise medical choices,
---For your medical reference shelf
---Books on medicine, health care, and caregiving -- for patients and caregivers
MANAGING PAIN
---Managing ordinary (not chronic) pain
---Managing chronic pain
---Organizations associated with pain management and relief
---The medical use of marijuana
---Managing pain and improving health with yoga
Medical mysteries, patient stories, caregiver stories
---Medical mysteries (stories of illnesses and conditions difficult to diagnose)
---Patient stories
---Medical professionals' stories
---Caregivers' stories
Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurance and exchanges
---Frequently asked questions about health insurance and the ACA (Obamacare)
Frequently asked questions about health insurance and the ACA (Obamacare)
---Medicare and Medicaid: History and legislation
---Medicare: What you need to know
---Medicare issues and Medicare reform (and reform proposals)
---Medicaid: What you need to know
---Medicaid issues and Medicaid reform
---MACRA: Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act
---Helpful blogs, websites, organizations, and citizen lobbies about Social Security, Medicare, and pension rights
---How Medicare and Medicaid fall short (End-of-life talks and other issues)
---Health insurance (general)
---Health insurance exchange and marketplaces (and ACA, or Obamacare)
---Faith-based alternatives to health insurance plans
---Health insurance, ACA, and the marriage glitch
---The politics and policy issues of health care (insurance) reform
Music for funerals and memorial services
---Classical music for funerals and memorial services
---Hymns, gospel, and inspirational music for funerals and memorial services
---Funeral anthems
---Patriotic and military funeral music
---Popular secular music, including blues music
Obituaries and other forms of tribute
---Self-written obituaries
---Online obituary and memorial websites
---About obituaries and obituary writing
---Examples of moving, memorable, amusing, or interesting obituaries and other kinds of tribute
---Books on (and of) obituary writing
---Eulogies and video tributes
Reforming the U.S. health care system
---Understanding the issues
---Repeal, replace, and various proposed alternatives to Obamacare (ACA)
---Health care reform and the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare)
---Doctors' incentives to prescribe expensive medications
---Who are Pharmacy Benefit Managers managing benefits for?
---Improving healthcare practices
---The costs of neglecting the mentally ill
---Organizations serious about improving U.S. healthcare
---Essential facts about the Affordable Care Act
---The politics and policy issues of health care (insurance) reform and the ACA (Obamacare)
---Health insurance, ACA, and the marriage glitch
---Taking the mystery out of health care prices (blog post)
---Why U.S. medical costs are so high and where the system needs fixing (blog post)
---Drugs, Big Pharma, conflicts of interest, and why U.S. patients pay too much for medication (blog post)
Retirement 101
--- Retirement and insurance calculators
---Retirement Finances 101
--- Being smart about pensions and annuities
---Social Security
---Retirement funds and issues
---Reverse mortgages, pro and con
---Second Chances: Retirement as a second act
---Traveling in retirement
Social Security and veterans benefits, pensions, and annuities
---Disability benefits
---Being smart about pensions and annuities
---Calculating and maximizing benefits
---History of (and threats to) Social Security
---Problems with, and proposed changes to, Social Security
---Research findings
---Stories and analysis, explanations and arguments
---Veterans healthcare, death, and survivor benefits
---Safety net programs for the poor
---Veterans healthcare, death, and survivor benefits
--- Veterans and veterans benefits, issues with (including Agent Orange)
Substance abuse and recovery
---Addiction, treatment, and recovery
---Alcoholism and approaches to treatment
---Addiction to opioids and psychoactive drugs
---Kratom as an alternative to opioids
---Culprits in the opioid crisis
---Eating disorders
---Smoking and smoking cessation
---Addiction to gambling
---Addiction to smartphones, the internet, online technology (aka "dependence syndrome")
---Helpful organizations and publications
---The war on drugs
---The problems with drug courts
---Sober living housing options
---Memoirs and fiction about drug abuse and various forms of addiction