End-of-life care is the support and medical care given during the time surrounding death. End of life issues are hard to talk about and often hard to face, let alone deal with. Learn what to expect and how to care for someone who is dying. Start with the NOA information which offers awareness about many of the subjects related to death that often aren't thought about or understood. We hope some of the resources below will make this time less stressful. 
National Institute on Aging
There are a lot of articles by the National Institute on Aging that support those who are overwhelmed with caring for someone who is dying. These include: 
  • Providing care and comfort at end of life
  • Explanation of palliative &  hospice Care
  • Finding care for a dying relative
  • End-of-Life care for those with dementia
  • Understanding health care decisions at end of life
  • What happens when someone dies
  • What to do after someone dies
  • Mourning the death of a spouse

What to do when someone dies

Dealing with the death of someone is traumatic and often leaves a person feeling overwhelmed, or just numb or shocked. If you are dealing with the death of a loved one, try to immediately find a family member or friend who can help you get through the process and keep you focused. There are urgent first steps you will need to take. AARP lists those as:
  1. Get a legal prouncement of death - call 911 if the person is at home
  2. Tell friends and family
  3. Find out about existing funeral and burial plans
Then, in the next days and weeks you will continue with legal, financial, and personal matters. For a complete list of what to do in the days and weeks after a loved one dies, read the full article from AARP. ​

Be Prepared Now - Help with Legal Issues

Don't wait until it's too late!
​It's hard to think of, and plan for, a loved one's death. But it's even harder to be unaware of the location of important legal, personal and financial information after they are gone, or to not have those things in place at all. If you are not prepared, you or your loved one can be traumatized and suffer discomfort that is preventable when properly planned. 
GETTING YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER
An infographic from the National Institute on Aging  on Advance Care Planning outlines the decisions about health and finances that a person should have documented. This is a good place to start for a general understanding of what to think about.
ADVANCE CARE PLANNING
To go to more depth about the different components of Advance Care Planning, NIH defines terms and documents required, and helps with the steps needed to be completely ready. Included are these topics:
  • What Is Advance Care Planning?
  • Advance Care Planning Decisions
  • Getting Started with Advance Care Planning
  • Making Your Advance Care Wishes Known
  • How to Choose Your Healthcare Proxy
  • Making Your Healthcare Directives Official
  • What to Do After You Set Up Your Advance Directive
  • Be Prepared
The Alzheimer's Association also has detailed information on planning for end of life, including having a phyisican sign a "DNR" (do not resuscitate), hospice care, how to talk to a doctor about end of life care, and whether to have a brain autopsy.
POWER OF ATTORNEY
Click on button at right to view a document from Legal Aid Works defining in detail what a Power of Attorney document is and why you need one.
HOW DO I FIND AN ATTORNEY?
The Virginia Academy of Eldercare Attorneys (VAELA) specializes in providing legal services for older adults. Click on the button at right to find a lawyer in your area. 
LOW INCOME ASSISTANCE
Legal Aid Works serves the 5 counties in our region and can help provide assistance with documents such as wills and power of attorney. Culpeper Office: 540-825-3131

To receive help from Legal Aid Works, you will first have to apply for eligibility through Legal Services of Northern Virginia. You can do that by clicking on the button at right. 
TALKING WITH FAMILY 
For most people, talking about death is not easy. Families need to know what the preferences are for a loved one when they reach end of life, before its too late, but the conversations can be tough. AARP offers insight into how to talk about end of life care.​

Support Organizations for End of Life Care

Hospice and Palliative Care are two forms of support from organizations that provide tremendous assistance  to patients and their families. Use of these services is dependant on the nature of the person's condition and in response their doctors' suggestions. For more understanding of the differences between hospice and palliative care, read this helpful informaton from the National Institute on Aging.
And scroll down this page for more information on both.

Hospice

Hospice is assistance intended to give supportive care to people in the final stages of a terminal illness. Rather than focusing on a cure the emphasis is on comfort and quality of life. The goal is to enable patients to be comfortable and free of pain, so that they live each day as fully as possible. Hospice care is  usually provided by a hospice service with a team of health care professionals that work with the patient's primary caregiver (usually a family member) to provide care and support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
​Hospice care not only supports the dying person, but also the family and loved ones who are stressed and grieving. 
​
See the chart below for hospice organizations in our region.

Palliative Care

A palliative care consultation team is a multidisciplinary team that works with the patient, family, and the patient's other doctors to provide medical, social, emtional and practical support. The team is made of palliative care specialist doctors and nurses, and includes others such as social workers, nutritionists, and chaplains. In addition to improving quality of life and helping with symptoms, palliative care can help patients understand their choices for medical treatment. The organized services available through palliative care may be helpful to any older person having a lot of general discomfort and disability very late in life. Palliative care can be provided along with curative treatment and does not depend on prognosis. Palliative care teams work with patients who have serious illnesses, but may not necessarily be terminal.
Palliative Care goes beyond your regular doctor to assure your loved one has all the needs required for support. You can start with your regular doctor for suggestions on building a palliative team or for suggestions about who else can help. Read this information from MedMD for further information about who might be on a palliative team, and about putting together a palliative team.

Planning a Funeral

Info coming.

"Sometimes it's OK if the only thing you did today was breath.”

- Yumi Sakugawa

Grief & Mourning

Read an outline on the process of grief and how to support someone who is grieving.
GRIEF SUPPORT GROUPS
Group
Website
Phone
o
Griefshare Group
Culpeper Baptist Church
​Culpeper Baptist Church
540-825-8192

Being Mortal - Dr. Atul Gawande

BEING MORTAL / Atul Gawande
​How do you talk about death with a dying loved one? Dr. Atul Gawande explores death, dying and why even doctors struggle to discuss being mortal with patients, in this Emmy-nominated documentary. “Aging and dying — you can’t fix those," says Dr. Gawande. This film examines the relationships between doctors and patients nearing the end of life, and how the medical profession can better help people navigate mortality. The ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life — to the very end.

​Aging Together

PO Box 367, Culpeper, VA 22701
540-829-6405 | info@agingtogether.org

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