The Quality of Life: Living Well, Dying Well - Hardcover

A look into the end of life, and how to care for and attend to loved ones in their final years. When Janet Lembke's mother was a sprightly 78 years old, she had made her daughter promise to help her die when the time came. Pills with a stiff Bloody Mary and a hug. But when that time came many years later, it was not so simple. Her mother had had a series of strokes that had rendered her incapable of rational thought, and Lembke couldn't, in fact, help her mother die. Watching her mother suspended in a life that wasn't really living prompted Lembke to wonder what could be done. How do we deal with life's end? How best may those of us who have our wits about us care for old, frail people whose minds are lost forever in the shadows? This book is a result of her quest for answers, of impeccable research into the world of care giving to the dying. Lembke examines death by choice - suicide, assisted and otherwise; advanced medical directives; the bioethics of withdrawal of life support; dementia and how a caregiver may cope with it; hospice; and the quality of life. The eponymous chapter explores ways to determine quality and discovers objective criteria. Lembke interviewed many people and tells their stories. Among them are two women who helped a mother die, a rabbi, a Muslim bio ethicist and a man, survivor of not one but two kidney transplants, who worked with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. The book concludes with a list of resources, such as the Alzheimer's Association, The Stroke Network and Life Line, a device for summoning help.