Table of Contents - Living With Grief: When Illness Is Prolonged (1997)
Foreword
Jack D. Gordon
Acknowledgements
- When Illness Is Prolonged: Implications for Grief Commentary by Kenneth J. Doka
- Fading Away During Terminal Illness: Implications for Bereavement in Family Members
Betty Davies - Living and Learning the Reality of a Loved One's Dying: Traumatic Stress and Cognitive Processing in Anticipatory Grief
Therese A. Rando - Hard Decisions in Hard Times: Making Ethical Choices During Prolonged Illness
David M. Price - Hospice Care and Its Effect on the Grieving Process
William Lamers, Jr. - The Story of Miss Mildred: Her Living and Dying
Annette Dula - Death from the Cancers
Stephen P. Hersh - Modulated Mourning: The Griwf and Mourning of Those Infected and Affected by HIV/AIDS
Inge B. Corless - Systemic Understandings of Loss and Grief Related to Alzheimer's Disease
Carol Williams and Brenda Moretta - Coping with Long-term Illness and Death in an Adult: The Impact on Grieving Children and Adolescents
Charles A. Corr - A Decalouge: Ten Commandments for the Concerned Caregiver
Rabbi Earl A. Grollman - Meaning Reconstruction and the Expierence of Chronic Loss
Robert A. Niemeyer - Healing Rituals: Pathways to Wholeness During Prolonged Illness and Following Death
Reverend Alice Parsons Zulli and O. Duane Weeks ConclusionResource List
References
Bibliographical Information
Foreword
Jack D. Gordon, President
Hospice Foundation of America
This book marks the third collection of articles in our Living With Grief series, and augments our April 1997 teleconference dealing with grief during and after long-term illness. The book is designed to explicate some of the issues certain to be raised by the teleconference. At the same time, it will direct further consideration of the topics by all readers, whether they attend the teleconference, watch the video, or read the book.
Hospice Foundation of America started this annual teleconference series because we saw a need to educate hospice workers and volunteers about bereavement issues. There was such a strong response, one which grows stronger each year, that the scope has widened to include all those who deal with bereavement in its variety of forms. In many communities, the teleconference now serves as a meeting place for various people and agencies to learn about each other and cooperate in responding to community problems.
The hospice movement itself has grown from the establishment of the first American hospice in 1973 to over 2500 separate organizations today. This means that hospice is filling a need that is obvious to people from one end of the country to the other. It also means that the American tradition of being a good neighbor and banding together to help those in need is alive and well in an age which is supposed to be characterized by "taking care of number one." The hospice movement is a response to what many perceive as the dual challenges of an over-technologization of medical care and the overt commercialization of health care.
It is only as one begins to read the literature, to speak with persons whose professional interest is death education, and to work with those who teach and counsel about the many forms of and responses to grief that the complexity of the subject becomes more and more apparent. That is why the Hospice Foundation of America has con tinued to use the teleconference as the focus of a significant effort to provide information and resources to as many people as possible. After all, none of us is immune to grief.
This book reminds us of the central role that loss plays in all of our lives. The chapters included here emphasize the myriad losses and concurrent griefs that individuals with prolonged illness, their families and caregivers experience through the course of the illness experience. The contributors to this book have been selected with care by our editor, Ken Doka, to make sure that many different facets of the subject are discussed by some of the best people in the field. It is our hope that this volume will serve as a resource and a guide for you in your work, your volunteer efforts, your studies, and your personal experiences.
[Note: Mr. Gordon served as Chairman and CEO of HFA until his death in 2005.]
