Modern technology has blurred the definitions surrounding death and dying. It has cast a veil of doubt upon the idea of discussing end-of-life issues regarding realistic, spiritual, and compassionate choices before or at the end of life. As a result, patients and family members find it increasingly more difficult to make informed decisions at this most difficult time. This self-help guide offers you facts based on research, anecdotes, and suggested reading-all intended to help you make the right choices when navigating the stormy seas that we will all face someday. You will learn the difference between Healthcare Advance Directives and Durable Power of Attorney; the reality of CPR, its many possible complications, and how successful it really is. You will learn the difference between life-support and mechanical ventilation, how modern technology prolongs the dying process. You will understand the reality of the financial impact on dying individuals and their families. You will learn about prolonging life vs. quality of life. You will understand the confusing term, terminal; what it means to hold on or let go; the consequences of withholding the truth from you regarding your illness or outcome, and much more Most importantly, learn to believe in yourself. Learn to empower yourself with knowledge. Your knowledge will arm you with strength and confidence, when making life-changing decisions.

A contemporary exploration of death and dying by a young Duke Fellow who investigates the hows, whys, wheres, and whens of modern death and their cultural significance.

“One of our greatest thinkers” on death presents a radical new approach to thinking about dying and the human corpse (Caitlin Doughty, mortician and bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes). A fascinating exploration of the relationship between technology and the human corpse throughout history—from 19th-century embalming machines to 21st-century death-prevention technologies. Death and the dead body have never been more alive in the public imagination—not least because of current debates over modern medical technology that is deployed, it seems, expressly to keep human bodies from dying, blurring the boundary between alive and dead. In this book, John Troyer examines the relationship of the dead body with technology, both material and conceptual: the physical machines, political concepts, and sovereign institutions that humans use to classify, organize, repurpose, and transform the human corpse. Doing so, he asks readers to think about death, dying, and dead bodies in radically different ways. Troyer explains, for example, how technologies of the nineteenth century including embalming and photography, created our image of a dead body as quasi-atemporal, existing outside biological limits formerly enforced by decomposition. He describes the “Happy Death Movement” of the 1970s; the politics of HIV/AIDS corpse and the productive potential of the dead body; the provocations of the Body Worlds exhibits and their use of preserved dead bodies; the black market in human body parts; and the transformation of historic technologies of the human corpse into “death prevention technologies.” The consequences of total control over death and the dead body, Troyer argues, are not liberation but the abandonment of Homo sapiens as a concept and a species. In this unique work, Troyer forces us to consider the increasing overlap between politics, dying, and the dead body in both general and specifically personal terms.

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Candidly written, ""On Death Without Dignity: The Human Impact of Technological Dying"", attempts to re-humanize the inevitable biological occurrence called dying. It is Moller's view that through the advancement of medicalized technology, has come the demise of the contemporary dying process. The oncological death is reflected as failure in the part of modern medicine, the physician, and the hospital; yet the patient experiences alienation, stigma, helplessness, and normlessness. Yet as a culture the current societal approach to the dying-silent avoidance-only adds to this alienation. Society has failed to provide the necessary rules for this universal, social, and biological event.

Whatever our background, bias, or beliefs, there is one truth to which each is bound and from which none can escape: sooner or later, we will die. Talking about death is never easy. Digital Remains: Death, Dying & Remembrance in the Tech Generation makes expert insights accessible and unintimidating. In this book, you'll gain up-to-date knowledge about your options, including how to: Use social media to notify your networks. Convert a Facebook page to an online memorial. Assign the rights to your digital property. Delete your digital existence. Make a plan for your physical remains. After your physical remains are laid to rest, your digital remains become the story you tell to generations that follow. Through this thoughtfully designed guidebook, author J.H. Harrington empowers you to take control of the digital imprints of your life and become the author of your own story. What will your digital debris reveal about the person you were, the life you led, and the impact you made? Start planning today.

There is no more universal truth in life than death. No matter who you are, it is certain that one day you will die, but the mechanics and understanding of that experience will differ greatly in today’s modern age. Dr. Haider Warraich is a young and brilliant new voice in the conversation about death and dying started by Dr. Sherwin Nuland and Atul Gawande. Dr. Warraich takes a broader look at how we die today, from the cellular level up to the very definition of death itself. The most basic aspects of dying—the whys, wheres, whens, and hows—are almost nothing like what they were mere decades ago. Beyond its ecology, epidemiology, and economics, the very ethos of death has changed. Modern Death, Dr. Warraich’s debut book, will explore the rituals and language of dying that have developed in the last century, and how modern technology has not only changed the hows, whens, and wheres of death, but the what of death. Delving into the vast body of research on the evolving nature of death, Modern Death will provide readers with an enriched understanding of how death differs from the past, what our ancestors got right, and how trends and events have transformed this most final of human experiences.

We have lost the ability to deal with death. Most of our friends and beloved relations will die in a busy hospital in the care of strangers, doctors and nurses they have known at best for a couple of weeks. They may not even know they are dying, victims of the kindly lie that there is still hope. They are unlikely to see even their family doctor in their final hours, robbed of their dignity and fed through a tube after a long series of excessive and hopeless medical interventions. This is the starting point of Seamus O'Mahoney's thoughtful, moving and unforgettable book on the western way of death. Dying has never been more public, with celebrities writing detailed memoirs of their illness, but in private we have done our best to banish all thought of dying and made a good death increasingly difficult to achieve.

Understanding Death and Dying teaches students about death, dying, bereavement, and afterlife beliefs by asking them to apply this content to their lives and to the world around them. Students see differing cultural experiences discussed in context with key theories and research. The text’s pedagogy delivers relevant multi- and cross-cultural applications and connections across topics. This helps students evaluate their personal assumptions and appreciate how the content applies to their own current and future roles as individuals, family members, work colleagues, and as part of a community. The text simultaneously challenges learners to consider their own perspectives and to think critically about the parallels between their own lives and different cultures. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.