Full Description
Practical and inspiring, this book helps you learn how to navigate encounters with death, dying, and bereavement. The authors emphasize ways that individuals and families can cope with life-threatening illness, grief, funerals, and other death-related topics -- including how to communicate constructively in the face of death. You'll learn about aided death -- a topic on many people's minds these days -- as well as about Alzheimer's disease and other life-altering conditions and prominent causes of death. You'll read personal stories and get insight into cultural and religious perspectives that affect people's encounters, attitudes, and practices in death-related matters. And you'll discover that you can gain important lessons about life and living from the study of death, dying, and bereavement.
Contents
Part I: LEARNING ABOUT DEATH, DYING AND BEREAVEMENT.
1. Education about Death, Dying, and Bereavement.
Part II: DEATH.
2. Changing Encounters with Death.
3. Changing Attitudes toward Death.
4. Death-Related Practices and the American Death System.
5. Cultural Patterns and Death.
Part III: DYING.
6. Coping with Dying.
7. Coping with Dying: How Individuals Can Help.
8. Coping with Dying: How Communities Can Help.
Part IV: BEREAVEMENT
9. Coping with Loss and Grief.
10. Coping with Loss and Grief: How Individuals Can Help.
11. Coping with Loss and Grief: Funeral Practices and Other Ways Communities Can Help.
PART V: DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES.
12. Children.
13. Adolescents.
14. Young and Middle-Aged Adults.
15. Older Adults.
Part VI: LEGAL, CONCEPTUAL, AND MORAL ISSUES.
16. Legal Issues.
17. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.
18. Aided Death: Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia, and Aid in Dying.
19. The Meaning and Place of Death in Life.
Part VII: AN EXAMPLE OF A SPECIFIC DISEASE ENTITY.
20. Illustrating the Themes of This Book: Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders.
Epilogue: Calendar Date Gives Mom Reason to Contemplate Life.
Appendix A. Selected Literature for Children: Annotated Descriptions.
Appendix B. Selected Literature for Adolescents: Annotated Descriptions.
Appendix C. Activity Books and Memory Books for Young Readers: Annotated Descriptions.
