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Posts Tagged With ‘ Barbara Karnes ’

 
Sleep Is a Sign of the Dying Process
August 9th, 2023

We tend to forget that life is a terminal illness. We are born, we experience, and then we die. All of living is on the road to death. How is that for a downer?   The thing is dying is a part of living. Like living, it has stages – a road to travel. The road from birth to death passes through infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, old age, and ends at death. This is the normal dying pattern. However, not everyone “plays by the rules” so death can occur anywhere along the life road. Disease can occur anywhere along the life road also.   Then there is fast death.... Continue Reading

August 9th, 2023
Continued Sporadic Breaths After Mom Was ‘Gone’
August 2nd, 2023

Dear Barbara, I have two questions please, if you would help. 1. My Mother’s eyes turned color a few hours before she died. Do you know anything about this? 2. When my Mother was struggling (fighting) at the end the pulse oximeter displayed no numbers, the hospice nurse said, ‘She’s gone.’ However, my Mother still ‘breathed’ these abrupt, jolted exhales for about 30 minutes and then these stopped. I want to know, please, did she die when the nurse said ‘She’s gone.’ or when the last breath was exhaled? To answer the first question, about your mom’s... Continue Reading

August 2nd, 2023
Is Dying Different For Older People?
June 28th, 2023

Dear Barbara, Is the process of dying different for the elderly? Is it different for children? There is no difference for a young person dying from disease, a medium aged or an older person. People dying from disease, whether old or young or in-between, go through the same process.  An older person with no disease actually goes through the same dying process as someone with a disease, only it takes the healthy, older person longer–years instead of months, months instead of weeks.  When it comes down to days, hours, and minutes, we all die in the same time frame, no matter age. There are... Continue Reading

June 28th, 2023
Do You Know About The Gems of Dementia?
June 21st, 2023

My dementia knowledge revolves around the end of life process. I know it is a symptom of various diseases rather than a disease itself. I know that as we get old our mind naturally has bits of dementia— memory loss being a major “old age” symptom.  I know that dementia doesn’t play by the rules of approaching death. The guidelines relating to food, sleep and sociability don’t fit with dementia. I know that I am seeing and interacting with more situations that involve dementia than I have in my many years of healthcare. I know that almost everyone I know has someone living with various... Continue Reading

June 21st, 2023
Hospice Does Not Euthanize
June 19th, 2023

Dear Barbara, I have two friends who recently died from strokes. They were both in their 90’s. They were heavily sedated and died within days. I know narcotics can slow breathing to the point where a person stops breathing and dies. Could hospices be using narcotics to euthanize their patients? I can’t respond directly to the situations of the two people referenced above. I would need a lot more medical history. BUT I can address the use of narcotics and euthanasia in general.  As I responded to this letter I thought how often I hear “Hospice killed my mom” or “Did hospice kill my mom”?... Continue Reading

June 19th, 2023
Putting Our House In Order
June 19th, 2023

I’ve frequently said that “other people die, not me or anyone close to me.” It’s a statement that seems to fit most people’s attitude toward death. “I’m not going to talk about death. I’m not going to make any plans, like an Advanced Directive. I’ll address those issues later” is basically how we approach end of life issues.  And then one day we are faced with our potential ending. Shock, oh shock! Not me! I thought it was only other people. We can talk about our not being able to be fixed but deep inside we really don’t believe it.  We think, “the diagnosis was a mistake,”... Continue Reading

June 19th, 2023
Why do I say “Dying is not a Medical Event?”
June 17th, 2023

First let’s clarify the word dying. Aside from the fact that we are all dying a bit with every breath we take, that life is a terminal illness, there comes a time when the body’s breathing, functioning ends. The above is the time I am referring to when I say dying is not a medical event. It is the days to hours before death actually arrives.  The months before death and the weeks of labor before death is when the body is approaching death but not actually dying. I know: semantics, but some people are wondering. In the months and weeks before death, medical intervention and medical tools are... Continue Reading

June 17th, 2023
What Is Terminal Restlessness?
June 17th, 2023

Terminal restlessness is a medical term for agitation as end of life approaches. It usually begins one to three weeks before death from disease or old age. The restlessness shows itself  by random body movements, hands picking the air or clothing, mumbling, talking but not making sense, by just not being settled and quiet. The person is now beyond expressing with words. There are few if any rational conversations. This restlessness can be a lack of oxygen to the brain but more likely it is just part of the natural way we die. We are all going to be afraid to some degree as we approach death. This... Continue Reading

June 17th, 2023
End of Life Patients Who Are Thinking about Suicide
May 31st, 2023

Dear Barbara, I work for a hospice. We have had a couple of patients die by suicide. Do you have any suggestions on care for our staff as they are having difficulty processing these deaths?  Most people who can’t be fixed think about suicide in the months before death. Interestingly, very few actually do it. It takes a great deal of courage to end your life. BUT when they do, we as healthcare workers, tend to think “what could we have done to prevent this?”  I’m going to go out on a limb here and give you something to think about: Most of our patients (actually most people)... Continue Reading

When A Alzheimer’s Patient Begins Hospice Care
May 31st, 2023

First I’m going to switch from the word Alzheimer’s to the word dementia. Alzheimer’s is a specific disease associated with dementia. Dementia as defined by the Oxford Language Dictionary is a “condition characterized by progressive or persistent loss of intellectual functioning, especially with impairment of memory and abstract thinking and often with personality change, resulting from organic disease of the brain”. The CDC states that dementia is “not a specific disease but is rather a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think or make decisions that interferes... Continue Reading