health care reform …
… an excellent summary by Relman in NYRB.
health care reform … Read More »
behavioral & psych symptoms of dementia …
… are best managed on a case-by-case basis after thorough evaluation, in general using behavioral approaches (not drugs). Some resources … An excellent monograph from the Alzheimer’s Assoc. A slide-set from the Int’l Pyscho-Geriatric Assoc. More than you want to know … including a primary care guide. A BPSD Handout.
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beautiful hills of brooklyn …
… a film that has won many awards … tells the experiences (through the recovered diary) of an elderly lady living alone in Brooklyn. “Jessie Singer Sylvester moved anonymously through old age in Brooklyn in the 1970s, absorbing one loss after the next — her job of 59 years, her beloved sister, her friends, her
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accompanying the sick …
Millet’s ‘The Sick Child’ “The simple and daily gesture of a mother, when looked at deeply, reflects the love and patience of those who elect to entirely devote themselves to keep the ill person company. But it may be that only she who takes part in giving birth can most serenely accept the tribulations and
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sulmasy on conscience …
Daniel Sulmasy, OFM MD PhD and a member of the new President’s Bioethics Commission discusses exactly what conscience is and is not … as well as proposing some boundaries for the mutual respect of conscience. “Conscience thus arises from a fundamental commitment or intention to be moral … The acts of conscience, by contrast, are
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human beings who uphold our fellow human beings …
… and are willing to be accompanied by others … Zucchi discusses the real choices to be engaged at life’s end. “Our choice is between hopelessness and hope, between despair and another way of looking at life, where we are not masters of our own destinies but rather human beings who uphold our fellow human
human beings who uphold our fellow human beings … Read More »
I am near to death …
… and Thou art calling me … So starts Newman’s meditation on death through the prayer of a dying man – The Dream of Gerontius – set to music in Elgar’s master choral work. a related prayer of Newman’s … ‘May He support us all the day long, till the shadows lengthen and the evening
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active, generous service as a way to avoid love?
… to avoid being present to those for whom we care? … read dom Andre Louf … ” … for me really to love, it is important that I feel a sense of need myself. My own need for love plays a role as great as the material or even the spiritual needs of others.
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the death of Prince Andrei …
“Prince Andrei not only knew that he would die, but felt that he was dying, that he was already half dead. He experienced an awareness of that estrangement from everything earthly and a joyful and strange lightness of being. Without haste or worry, he waited for what lay ahead of him. The dread, the eternal,
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great, dramatic and serene meditation on death …
… “In [Mozart’s] last letter written to his dying father, dated April 4, 1787, he wrote, speaking precisely of the final stage of life on earth: “For about a year I have become so familiar with this sincere and greatly loved friend of man, [death], that its image no longer holds anything that is terrifying,
great, dramatic and serene meditation on death … Read More »