Literature Review

Partners In Care hosts A Year to Live book discussion group starting April 5 Cascasde Business News; by CBN; 3/11/25 The Bereavement Department in conjunction with leadership at Partners In Care is hosting a community group to explore messaging in Stephen Levine’s book A Year to Live through a series of monthly sessions in 2025 and early 2026. In A Year to Live, Stephen Levine, author of the perennial bestseller Who Dies? teaches us how to live each moment, each hour, and each day mindfully—as if it were all that was left. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for an entire year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities. 

Here’s to Laura Ptucha-Skoog, hospice nurse YubaNet.com; by Timothy May; 3/10/25 “I’m not sure I’d say much at all, not at first. I would just try to listen.” This in response to the question of how a hospice nurse should respond if patients or family members make demands that seem unreasonable, unwise, or downright impossible. ... Laura Ptucha-Skoog should know; she has been an R.N. for decades and a nurse at Hospice of the Foothills for the last nine years. She loves her job, including the challenge of facilitating communication. Her ability to talk frankly with terminally ill hospital patients and families drew her to a career in hospice. “Often,” Laura explains, “the human elements are as challenging as the medical ones. Things like asking the right questions and listening to responses; making sure your patient and their caregivers understand what you are doing and why; verifying that everyone understands where you are in the process; listening to their responses with patience and empathy.” ... 

VNA Hospice NWI celebrates staff, volunteers and community at annual dinner banquet NWI.Life; by Garrett Spoor; 3/4/25 For more than half a century, VNA Hospice NWI has been assisting seniors in Northwest Indiana with hospice care and the Meals on Wheels program. The organization hosted its Annual Dinner and Awards banquet on Monday, March 3, ... “The big purpose of the annual dinner is to thank all the people who made last year possible,” [Maria Galka, director of development] said. “It’s a great opportunity for us to show our appreciation for the staff, volunteers and our supporters. We present our annual report from the past fiscal year and look forward to what's coming in the new year.” ... VNA Hospice NWI was presented with a check for $32,798 from Don Quijote Restaurante to support VNA Meals on Wheels. The Legion Riders Post #94 provided a check for $12,500 for the VNA Hospice NWI. The dinner presented plenty of awards and scholarships to recognize some of the attendees ...Editor's note: What appreciation events and awards/recognitions do your organization regularly provide for your employes, volunteers, and community? Click on this article's title to explore the scope of this organization's highly valued Annual Dinner and Awards. When you have events such as these, remember to take provide "take-out" food for your employees who are duty elsewhere, like your on-call office and hospice inpatient care.

Local veterans to be honored at pinning ceremonies Call & Times, East Providence, RI; by John Baker, Pawtucket Times; 2/26/25 It never gets old for Christine Miller. Whenever she places a commemorative pin on a Vietnam War veteran and sees their reaction to it, it warms her heart, sometimes even bringing her to tears. That’s one of the best parts of her job as Beacon Hospice Care Community Engagement Coordinator, which later filtered into her becoming the president of the Rhode Island Hospice Veterans Partnership, which she herself founded. Miller, a Pawtucket resident, announced recently that, with Vietnam War Veterans Day coming up on Saturday, March 29, she will conduct a few [pinning ceremonies] ... Editor's note: Access to the full article may be limited. Pair this with today's post, National Vietnam War Veterans Day, March 29, 2025. 

[UK Hospice Fundraiser] Over 5,000 Christmas trees recycled to help local parks Manchester News, United Kingdom; by Manchester City Council; 2/26/25... In partnership with local charity Just Helping, who fundraise for Francis House hospice, the We Love Manchester charity and St Ann’s hospice, we raised £117, 675 for local hospices and charities as well as saved a an estimated 84, 944kg on CO2 emissions.  Editor's note: This recycling Christmas trees fundraiser is a popular community engagement fundraiser for many hospices. The work is done mainly by volunteers. Articles we posted this past season include the following:

Hospice workers in Tampa experience what it feels like to live with dementiaFox 13 Tampa Bay, FL; by Kailey Tracy; 2/19/25 Keosha Simmons says her father, who died in 2018, was a hard worker and an amazing man. ... "He did live with dementia. It was an early onset of dementia. He ended up with cancer, and it was a later stage when we found out about it, and that's when he came under the care of Empath Health Suncoast Hospice," Simmons said. Simmons is now the Director of Empath’s Community Engagement team. On Wednesday, Simmons and her team did a different kind of training. It was a hands-on simulation to experience what someone with dementia feels. [From this article's "The Brief" Summary.]

Hearts for Hospice showers patients with love Davidson Local, Davidson County, NC; 2/14/25 As people prepare to shower each other with love each Valentine's Day, the annual Hearts for Hospice provides comforting packages to more than 350 patients and families. Staff says that the community initiative is a highly regarded event at [Hospice of Davidson County] HODC, eagerly anticipated by volunteers and staff each year. This Valentine-themed event begins with contributions of sweet treats, stuffed animal items, and personal care items donated by individuals, civic groups, and the business community. Following the drop-offs, a team assembles Valentine-themed goodie bags filled with delightful treats. These lovingly prepared gifts are then delivered to participating patients throughout the service area on Valentine’s Day, creating an opportunity to spread joy, warmth and affection.

Aging for Amateurs: Valentine's Day brings out the poetry of aging in love The Post and Courier, Charleston, SC ; by Bert Keller; 2/10/2 The week of Valentine’s Day breathes love. Many elders have lived through love’s changing seasons consciously, experiencing what an alive, evolving, hazardous and soul-satisfying thing love is. ... In every long love, the emotional part undergoes a change as the stages of life are lived through. Marriage begins like a bonfire that melts and merges us: our togetherness wants no separation. Then it eases into a practical fire for cooking meals and washing dishes — those years of getting up with the baby, balancing the books, taking out the garbage. ... And then in old age ... love is less a feeling alongside other feelings, and more a shared sense of being with the other. My wife calls it “with-ness.” ... What was transactional in an earlier stage has become grace. After retirement I volunteered to do chaplaincy with a local hospice. I recall a moment sitting at the bedside of a 93-year-old man whose memory was erased by Alzheimer’s disease. He was now dying ... His wife, who also had Alzheimer’s and was no longer capable of much conversation, sat in a wheelchair by his bed and held his hand. She kept repeating to me, tears flowing, “We’ve been married for 73 years, you know.” It was a kind of mantra. How could I know what it’s like to be at the deathbed of a partner with whom you’ve intimately shared 73 years of life? All the stories, all the peaks and valleys, of such a lifetime? ... Editor's note: May we listen and learn.

HealthcareBusinessToday.com series on hospice careEditor's note: The following articles were posted on 2/10/25 by HealthcareBusinessToday.com.

Volunteer and her 3 dogs provide joy through Hospice of the Valley's pet therapy program AZCentral; by Lin Sue Flood, Hospice of the Valley; 2/7/25 Marian Wallace loves dogs and loves volunteering, so she put the two together to provide joy to others. [Her] three adorable Labradors — Mattie, Harper and Richey — are the newest members of Hospice of the Valley’s pet therapy program. They visit youngsters at Ryan House, which provides respite support to families with medically fragile children. ... Marian joined Hospice of the Valley’s pet therapy program was about 10 years ago. A friend who had a therapy pet inspired her to rescue and train dogs. She began visiting hospice patients with her first two labs, Shiloh and Amy. ... “It’s that child-animal interaction that I find so incredible,” she said. ... One of the most endearing qualities she sees in all of her Labs is how intuitive they are, tapping into the moods and emotions of children to comfort them. ... Editor's note: Ensuring pet therapy training and certification is crucial, for both the pet and the owner. Click here for an extensive national list of Pet Therapy Organizations. If you have--or plan to provide--a pet therapy program, be sure that insurance is provided (by the pet therapy organization and/or by you) in case an incident occurs. 

No one should die alone. A Cape Fear Valley initiative aims to make that true for patients The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, NC; by Lizmary Evans; 2/5/25 No one should take their last breath alone, and the mission of a new volunteer group at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center will make sure that doesn't happen. The No One Dies Alone program, an internationally recognized initiative that began in 2001 at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon, provides trained companions to sit with dying patients who do not have loved ones available during their final moments, according to a news release. ... "Sitting at the bedside of another human being, keeping awake and alert — it’s a vigil," [Mary Draughn, the hospice patient care manager at Valley Hospice House in Fayetteville] said last week. "This vigil provides comfort, meaning, resolution and peace to both the dying person and the companion."

What can we learn from the dying? Newscastle's News Letter Journal (NLJ), Newcastle, WY; by Kelly Evans-Hullinger, MD; 1/26/25 For the last five years, I have had the great privilege of serving my local health system as Medical Director for Home Hospice. Every week I sit in a meeting with the multidisciplinary caretakers on this team ... Patients facing their own deaths want to talk about their lives. Our staff frequently tries to facilitate what they call a “life review” in which a patient can openly talk about their childhood, family, career, service, and sometimes their regrets. This is therapeutic for the dying patient and their loved ones.  ... I have recently thought about this particular human need – to reflect and remember one’s life. I take this as a reminder to both seek those stories from my own loved ones (I wish I had asked my grandmother more questions about her life) and, perhaps, to tell and write about the things in my own life I would want to be remembered after I am gone. For if there is another thing I’ve learned serving patients on hospice, it is that my death is also inevitable; but, I think, life’s finality is what gives it beauty and meaning. 

Falls Quilt Guild celebrates “Adopt A Bear” 25th birthday Times-Leader, Great Falls, MT; by the Falls Quilt Guild; 1/24/25 ... Kevin Sukut from Benefis Peace Hospice and Children's Bereavement Coordinator thanked guild members for the donation of quilts that accompany bears with adoption papers. It is a powerful and emotional experience participating in the gifting part of healing so many young hearts. These are given to children who accompany grieving families at Hospice. These quilts become a security blanket that brings joy to children’s faces. Kevin partners with Torene Marcum to set up and distribute bags throughout Benefis and to Choteau and Fort Benton. Torene states it is amazing how the bear and quilt makes treating children easier.