The Art Of Conversation Through Serious Illness

Download or read book The Art of Conversation Through Serious Illness written by Richard McQuellon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-29 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day, thousands of people receive a diagnosis of serious, life-threatening illness, and their families and friends suddenly become caregivers. Despite the best of intentions it is not always easy to communicate well under these circumstances, or find deep empathy for something one has never before experienced. When is it best to speak, and when to be silent? How can someone provide real comfort, and how can relationships with loved ones facing serious illness be enhanced in this most difficult time? This book is about how to be an encouraging caregiver and friend under the most difficult circumstances, when the possibility of death is all too real The authors believe that open dialogue must not be avoided until the last minute when opportunities will be limited, but that caregivers and loved ones can embrace this time, mortal time, honestly as a way to sensitively and compassionately engage with those for whom a central fact of life is realized--that all of our lives are time-limited. In The Art of Conversation Through Serious Illness, 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. Offering bedside guidance usually only available to professionals and peppered with insightful anecdotes from the authors' own experiences, this gentle, succinct book is appropriate for anyone going through this uniquely difficult yet universal life experience.

Download or read book The Art of Dying Well written by Katy Butler and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “comforting…thoughtful” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a “roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance” (The Boston Globe). “A common sense path to define what a ‘good’ death looks like” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This “empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear” (Shelf Awareness).

Download or read book The Art of Conversation Through Serious Illness:Lessons for Caregivers written by Richard McQuellon and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010-04-29 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day, thousands of people receive a diagnosis of serious, life-threatening illness, and their families and friends suddenly become caregivers. Despite the best of intentions it is not always easy to communicate well under these circumstances, or find deep empathy for something one has never before experienced. When is it best to speak, and when to be silent? How can someone provide real comfort, and how can relationships with loved ones facing serious illness be enhanced in this most difficult time?This book is about how to be an encouraging caregiver and friend under the most difficult circumstances, when the possibility of death is all too real The authors believe that open dialogue must not be avoided until the last minute when opportunities will be limited, but that caregivers and loved ones can embrace this time, mortal time, honestly as a way to sensitively and compassionately engage with those for whom a central fact of life is realized--that all of our lives are time-limited.In The Art of Conversation Through Serious Illness, 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. Offering bedside guidance usually only available to professionals and peppered with insightful anecdotes from the authors' own experiences, this gentle, succinct book is appropriate for anyone going through this uniquely difficult yet universal life experience.

Download or read book The Art of Conversation written by Judy Apps and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good conversation is at the heart of networking, meetings, interviews, negotiations and raising your profile. It can ease your way in work, enabling you to build alliances, create strong relationships with staff, bosses and clients, succeed at interviews, motivate and inspire. But conversation is something most of us were never taught! We learn to speak as babies, but how conversation actually works is something most of us pick up only haphazardly, and many have yet to learn. Why is it some of us are stuck for words, but others blabber or can’t stop? What is it that some people have naturally which enables them to converse comfortably and easily, to engage people and build better relationships? The Art of Conversation will show you step by step how to converse skillfully and enjoyably with other people, at home, at work, on the phone and in the street- even if you’re daunted now, discover the difference good conversation can make in every aspect of your life. Learn to: -Overcome the most common block to good conversation- fear; find out how to break the silence and keep the conversation going - Understand the different types of conversation and how they work- which topics and language are suitable for the occasion - Learn simple methods for being heard and understood, including speaking clearly and audibly, listening well and using non-verbal communication - Find out how to hold a conversation in tricky situations, including how to disagree, how to speak to those in authority and people you find difficult -Use conversation to form relationships, improve friendships, make the sale, chat people up, to learn, influence and persuade.

Download or read book The Art of Conversation in Cancer Care written by Richard P. McQuellon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We use "mortal time" in our work to mean the experience of human beings confronting the prospect of death. This confrontation can stimulate intense feelings, a flurry of thoughts, and erratic or unusual behavior. In the broadest sense, mortal time is entered whenever death comes near, and that can happen either directly or vicariously. Hearing the words, "you have cancer," and signing a medical consent form where death is a possible medical "complication," are direct experiences of mortal time. Learning of a loved one's cancer diagnosis, losing a family member in an automobile accident, or reading about a missing child are vicarious experiences of mortal time. The power of tragedy in the theatre can brings us into the experience of mortality. King Lear's madness in the face of betrayal propels him toward an untimely death. The focus in this book is on the particular and powerful experience of entering mortal time when someone receives a diagnosis of cancer, a life-threatening illness. As we noted in our introduction to this second edition, the experience of mortal time in cancer medicine has changed with new treatments. A cancer diagnosis could mean an illness where rapid progression toward death is looming, or where there is only the distant possibility of death. Now there is a third option: the prospect of longer survival with metastatic disease due to the promise of additional therapies, facilitated by next generation genome sequencing. This means, a lengthier period of mortal time and uncertainty for many cancer patients. MORTAL TIME: HOW LONG DOES IT LAST? There are, of course, many instances in which people far exceed their statistically predicted life span. This holds true whether it be the prediction of a physician in the midst of treating an illness or the projected life span of an insurance life-expectancy table. In Part II we give an example of how misleading statistics can be when we discuss the idea of false hope. When mortal time looms with the diagnosis of cancer, it may stretch from days to years, with patients encountering both helpful treatments that lead to periods of remission and recurrences of disease requiring additional treatment. Some patients may never experience a time when it is apparent that they are dying until the last days. The interval between living and dying that we are concerned with here is not primarily chronological time, measured in days, weeks, and months. The hallmark of mortal time is the person's unique biological, psychological, social, and spiritual experience of the prospect and meaning of death, a prospect that confronts their caregivers as well. Mortal time is "kairos" time, the ancient Greek word meaning the time of decisions. When someone enters mortal time directly, their caregivers enter the same time zone vicariously. What they do together in mortal time, especially how they speak and listen to each other, affects the quality and meaning of life for all involved, in the moment and beyond"--

Download or read book The Art of Conversation written by Peter Burke and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1993 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Art of Conversation is a major contribution to the social history of language – a relatively new field which has become the focus of lively interdisciplinary debate in recent years. Drawing on the work of sociolinguists and others, Burke uses their concept while reserving the right to qualify their theories where the historical record makes this seem appropriate. Like the sociolinguists, Burke in concerned with the way language varies according to who is communicating to whom, on what occasion, in what medium and on what topic. Unlike many sociolinguists, Burke adds a historical dimension, treating language as an inseparable part of social history. This approach is outlined and justified in the first chapter and then exemplified in the remaining four, which deal with the early modern period. Among the topics discussed are the changing role of Latin, which is shown to be very much alive in the age of its alleged decline; language and identity in Italy, a politically divided region at the time but one where educated elites had a common language; the art of conversation, in other words the advice on speaking in polite company offered in hundreds of treaties of the period; and silence, viewed as an act of communication with a significance which changes over time and varies according to the setting and the persons who are silent. The Art of Conversation will be of great interest to students and scholars in social and cultural history, linguistics, the sociology of language and the ethnography of communication.

Download or read book The Conversation written by Angelo E. Volandes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-01-13 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There is an unspoken dark side of American medicine--keeping patients alive at all costs. Two thirds of Americans die in healthcare institutions tethered to machines and tubes, even though research indicates that most prefer to die at home in comfort, surrounded by loved ones. The question How do you want to live? must be posed to the seriously ill because they deserve to choose. If doctors explain options--including the choice to forego countless medical interventions that are often of little benefit--then patients can tell doctors how they wish to spend the remainder of their lives. A doctor's heroic efforts to prolong a life can instead prolong that patient's death, and these traumatic measures also bankrupt the healthcare system. One third of the Medicare budget is spent on the last six months of life, often on technological interventions that are not helpful and inflict more suffering. Through the stories of six patients and six very different end-of-life experiences, Volandes explores the trajectory of events and treatments that occur with and without this essential conversation. He argues for a radical re-envisioning of the patient-doctor relationship--including videos to spark discussions--and offers ways for patients and their families to talk about this difficult issue to ensure that patients will be at the center and in charge of their medical care"--Provided by publisher.