February is American Heart Month. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States; one in every three deaths is from heart disease and stroke, equal to 2,200 deaths per day. February is also the month of love. What if one of your loved ones is among those statistics that suffered a catastrophic stroke and is dying? How do you say, “I Love You…” when your loved one can no longer respo

Talking about death is difficult. You worry that you’ll take away hope or burden your loved one with fear. Speaking about death may seem like a form of abandonment because it suggests you’ve given up on the lingering promise of a cure. Your own anxiety, sadness, and discomfort may make the words choke in your throat. But clinicians who work with people with a terminal illness point out the following: Some crav

As a person approaches the final hours of life, three types of changes occur. There are physical changes that take place as the body begins to shut down and there are emotional and spiritual changes. This article focuses on the physical changes that occur. I will defer to experts in other disciplines to address the emotional and metaphysical changes that take place as we prepare for death. In some ways the process