Improving Dying

HFA’s newest book, Improving Dying, sheds light on the important work going on at U.S. hospices and provides evidence that not all hospice care is equal. Many hospices go the extra mile with patient and family care, proving that the hospice ethos of specialized care is alive and well.

Improving Dying features chapters about interventions and programs that bring meaning and value to the dying experience beyond basic symptom management and pain control. Chapters include:

• a discussion of the use of meaning-centered psychotherapy and dignity therapy;
• the importance of physical and occupational therapies; and
• the role that expressive therapies like art and music can play.

The book also looks at newer innovations, such as virtual reality and a hospice’s volunteer end-of-life doula program; and focuses a spotlight the difference pet therapy or even a simple haircut can make for a patient. Authors also address how to enhance care for children and adolescents, and for veterans facing the end of life.

Hospice and palliative care professionals, volunteers, and anyone who supports those at the end of life will find new insights, ideas, and techniques to care for dying patients. As Brad Stuart, MD writes in the Foreword, “Improving Dying shows how hospice is a complex and nuanced world of its own. Hospice is a world of healing.” (Edited by Kenneth J. Doka and Amy S. Tucci)