LibGuides: Psychology & Mental Health: Grief & End-of-Life

Final Acts: Death, Dying, and the Choices We Make by Nan Bauer-Maglin and Donna Perry, eds.
Publication Date: 2009
...(discusses) documents that should be prepared (health proxy, do-not-resuscitate order, living will, power of attorney); decision-making (over medical interventions, life support, hospice and palliative care, aid-in-dying, treatment location, speaking for those who can no longer express their will); and the roles played by religion, custom, family, friends, caretakers, money, the medical establishment, and the government.

Advance Care Planning

Nan Bauer-Maglin, & Donna Perry. (2010). Final Acts : Death, Dying, and the Choices We Make. Rutgers University Press.

Sacha Langton-Gilks. (2018). Follow the Child : Planning and Having the Best End-of-Life Care for Your Child. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Leah Rogne, P., & Susana Lauraine McCune, M. C. (2014). Advance Care Planning : Communicating About Matters of Life and Death. Springer Publishing

Institute of Medicine, & Committee on Approaching Death: Addressing Key End-of-Life Issues. (2015). Dying in America : Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. National Academies Press.

>> Articles

Hong, M., & Kim, K. (2022). Advance care planning among ethnic/racial minority older adults: Prevalence of and factors associated with informal talks, durable power of attorney for health care, and living will. Ethnicity & Health, 27(2), 453–462. doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2020.1734778
Given the ethnic/racial disparities in end-of-life care, this study aimed to describe and identify factors affecting engagement in three types of advance care planning including informal talk, living will, and durable power of attorney for health care among ethnic/racial minority older adults.

Shelley, M. R. (2017). Talking about the Taboo Topic of Death: State and Federal Initiatives to Reach Informed Consent at the End of Life through Advance Care Planning. Drake L. Rev., 65, 583.

Life to Be Lived: Challenges and Choices for Patients and Carers in Life-threatening Illnesses by Catherine Proot; Michael Yorke
Publication Date: 2014-01-02
... the authors examine the process of adjustment that patients and their families go through in major illnesses and when approaching the end of life. ...essential reading for professionals and trained volunteers who work as a part of multidisciplinary teams in palliative and end-of-life care to improve their understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of patients and carers. Families and friends will also benefit from this book as they try to come to terms with their own situations and how they can cope better with them.

Last Rights (video)
Who decides how life ends? The patient? The family? The physician? The health care system? This is a compelling and deeply personal exploration of four families and their terminally-ill loved ones as they face death.

Dying - Palliative Care

Emily K. Abel. (2017). Living in Death’s Shadow : Family Experiences of Terminal Care and Irreplaceable Loss. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Harold Braswell. (2019). The Crisis of US Hospice Care : Family and Freedom at the End of Life. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Monika Renz, & John Peck. (2015). Dying : A Transition. Columbia University Press. "...encourages practitioners to not only safeguard patients'dignity as they die but also take stock of their verbal, nonverbal, and metaphorical cues as they progress, helping to personalize treatment and realize a more peaceful death."

Joan Berzoff, & Phyllis R. Silverman. (2004). Living with Dying : A Handbook for End-of-Life Healthcare Practitioners. Columbia University Press.

Roi Livne. (2019). Values at the End of Life : The Logic of Palliative Care. Harvard University Press. This insightful study examines the deeply personal and heart-wrenching tensions among financial considerations, emotional attachments, and moral arguments that motivate end-of-life decisions.

Richard McQuellon, & Michael Cowan. (2010). The Art of Conversation Through Serious Illness : Lessons for Caregivers. Oxford University Press. "...the authors consider how to best listen to and speak with one facing life-threatening illness, with lessons on being a primary conversation partner, becoming properly empathic and receiving empathy, maintaining everyday conversation, using platitudes appropriately, understanding healthy denial, and talking about dying."

Lessons for the Living (Video)
Lessons for the Living reveals a unique subculture of Hospice volunteers as they reflect on their experiences and philosophies of life and death. However small or great these moments spent with the dying are, these volunteer's lives have been change forever.

Psychology & Mental Health

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