Hospice Care Books

Izzy & Lenore: Two Dogs, an Unexpected Journey, and Me

Jon Katz

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General AAS
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Animal Care & Pets -> Dogs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In his previous books, New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz introduced us to the delightful menagerie at Bedlam Farm, including Izzy, the unforgettable border collie rescue. Now, in Izzy & Lenore, Katz delves deeper into his connection with the beautiful, once-abandoned dog, learning yet again about the unexpected places animals can take us. Affectionate and intuitive, Izzy is unlike any dog Katz has encountered, and the two undertake a journey Katz could not have imagined without the arrival of a new companion: a spirited, bright-eyed black Labrador puppy named Lenore.

As trained hospice volunteers visiting homes and nursing facilities in upstate New York, Katz and Izzy bring comfort and canine companionship to people who most need it. An eighty-year-old Alzheimer’s patient smiles for the first time in months when she feels Izzy’s soft fur. A retired logger joyfully remembers his own beloved dog when he sees Izzy. As Izzy bonds with patients and Katz focuses on their families, the author begins to come to terms with his own life, discovering dark realities he has never confronted. Meanwhile, Lenore–quickly dubbed the Hound of Love–arrives at Bedlam. Her genial personality and boundless capacity for affection steer Katz out of the shadows, rekindle his love of working with dogs, and restore his connection to the farm and the animals and people around him.

Humorous and deeply moving, Izzy & Lenore is a story of a man confronting his past, embracing the blessings of his current life, and rediscovering the meaning of friendship, family, and faith. Katz shares an uplifting tale of love, compassion, and the rich and complex relationships between dogs and their humans.

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying

Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley

Amazon Price: $11.56 List Price: $17.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bantam Amazon Marketplace: 117 new & used starting at $3.98

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Death & Grief -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 162 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

must overlook authors superstitions 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

contains valuable information on what to expect emotionally from and how to interact with a dying loved one. the author assumes life after life, which is unknown in reality. this affects her interpretations of the departings' experience. if you can overlook this, it's a good book.

Editorial Review:

Five years after its first publication, with more than 150,000 copies in print, Final Gifts has become a classic. In this moving and compassionate book, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years experience tending the terminally ill.

Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts—of wisdom, faith, and love—that the dying leave for the living to share.

Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.

Medical Terminology: A Short Course

Davi-Ellen Chabner

List Price: $24.95 By: W.B. Saunders Company Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $0.19

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

I enjoy this very much 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I have learned a lot reading this book. I work in medical records and transcribe dictations and this has really helped me a lot in this area being that I have no medical terminology knowledge at all. I love the CD that comes with it, you can take test over and over on it. It's awesome.

RN to be! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am entering the nursing field and this book gave me a great jump start. I can't believe how much I learned just in the first chapter! The book has A LOT of reviews which definitely helped me understand and memorize terms. The whole structure of the book is super easy to understand. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of entering any part of the medical profession.

Editorial Review:

Brief introductory workbook for students taking medical terminology courses. Contains pronunciation guides, exercises, and review sheets. Updated edition provides an appendix covering major classes of drugs, an expanded body systems appendix, and additional tables and examples. Previous edition: c1999. Softcover. DNLM: Terminology--Problems and Exercises.

Mosby's Textbook for Nursing Assistants

Shelia Sorrentino

List Price: $52.95 By: C.V. Mosby Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $15.94

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great service 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was in great shape and very reasonable. It was delivered as scheduled with no problems. Thank you

very thick textbook 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Wow, if i would have gotten a textbook this thick when i was going to CNA classes, i would have been pissed since the class was only four weeks, that would have meant that i would have to cram all that info into my brain in such a short amount of time. anyway, its a good book containing actual photos, i skimmed through it a little and found that this could also be used for the instructor as well as the student, so anyway,this is a good book to have even after you get your certification,i also purchased the workbook, but have not looked it over yet.

mosby's nursing assistant manual 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I teach nursing aids and this is the manualI use with my students.
excellent manual and my students use also the workbook.

Editorial Review:

Heartland Community College, Bloomington, IL. Textbook for nursing assistant students. Emphasis is on long-term care, but includes other settings. New topics include work ethics, wound care, oxygen needs, and developmental disabilities. Previous edition: c1996. Hardcover, softcover also available.

Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality (Vintage)

Pauline W. Chen

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 85 new & used starting at $4.18

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Final Exam 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Very moving at times. The medical profession is a world of its own. Power is too concentrated. The education process is to dehumanizing. It's difficult for human beings to emerge from the process.

Final Exam 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is an excellent resource for caregivers who work with terminally-ill people: clergy, social workers, hospice volunteers, family members, etc. It provides a clear picture of the daily world of professional medical personnel, offering a rare insight into the personal dilemmas and struggles they encounter, but which are not shared with others.

Editorial Review:

A brilliant transplant surgeon brings compassion and narrative drama to the fearful reality that every doctor must face: the inevitability of mortality.

When Pauline Chen began medical school, she dreamed of saving lives. What she could not predict was how much death would be a part of her work. Almost immediately, she found herself wrestling with medicine’s most profound paradox–that a profession premised on caring for the ill also systematically depersonalizes dying. Final Exam follows Chen over the course of her education and practice as she struggles to reconcile the lessons of her training with her innate sense of empathy and humanity. A superb addition to the best medical literature of our time.

That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story

Marlena De Blasi

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Not yet published By: Ballantine Books

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"From de Blasi (The Lady in the Palazzo, 2007, etc.), a fragrant tale of life and love in the mountains of Sicily.Shortly after the Venetian interlude she luxuriously captured in A Thousand Days in Venice (2002), the author accepted an assignment to write a magazine article on the interior regions of Sicily. Like many other journalists, she was met by silence from the wary Sicilians. She was about to retire to the mainland when she stumbled upon Villa Donnafugata, whose romantic turrets, towers, balconies and chromatically tiled roof were surrounded by gardens, fields, piazzas and hills. The black-draped, oldish women in residence tended to their various labors, chanted, laughed and prayed. The sun was hot, the smell of herbs suffused the air. Was this a fever dream? de Blasi wondered. No, but it was surely a place from another time, and how it emerged out of feudalism through an act of moral modernity was a story unfurled to the author by the villa’s mistress, Tosca. The tale, which comprises most of the book, is a marvel. As a child of nine or ten, Tosca was sent by her horse-breeder father to live with a Sicilian prince, Leo, who “had a stallion that Tosca’s father wanted more than his daughter.” Early rebellion gave way to affection, then love. Together, in the years following World War II, the prince and his ward brought education, health care and a shared sense of purpose to the village around their manor. Rapture and grief came in measured doses, but ultimately Leo was run out of town for his affront to the “centuries’-old system of hierarchy that kept the wealthy in comfort and the poor in misery.” Even in 1995, when de Blasi first visited Donnafugata, the old ways abided, like the shawl Tosca wore at night, still permeated with the scent of her beloved. Swift, sinuous, deep and brimming with cultural artifacts."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Strangers seldom wander into the mountainous wild at Sicily’s heart. The locals, having resisted repeated waves of invaders, maintain their own traditions in defiance of the outside world. So when de Blasi and her Venetian husband trek into Sicily’s core in search of background for a travel guide, they discover a world much removed from modern life. Persevering in what seems a fruitless search, they finally stumble upon the Villa Donnafugata, an old wreck of a castle presided over by an imperious woman called Tosca. The villa has become a refuge for widows from the region. It also houses a birthing clinic, vital to the mountains’ isolated women. The residents eat well and heartily, the leftovers distributed to the local town’s poor. De Blasi uncovers Tosca’s past, an extraordinary tale of passion and love stretching over decades of the twentieth century. Admirers of this author will relish her latest volume."
- BOOKLIST

“At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away,” writes bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she finds, accidentally, one summer while traveling with her husband, Fernando. There de Blasi is befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, an elegant and beautiful woman-of-a-certain-age who recounts her lifelong love story with the last prince of Sicily descended from the French nobles of Anjou.

Sicily is a land of contrasts: grandeur and poverty, beauty and sufferance, illusion and candor. In a luminous and tantalizing voice, That Summer in Sicily re-creates Tosca’s life, from her impoverished childhood to her fairy-tale adoption and initiation into the glittering life of the prince’s palace, to the dawning and recognition of mutual love. But when Prince Leo attempts to better the lives of his peasants, his defiance of the local Mafia’s grim will to maintain the historical imbalance between the haves and the have-nots costs him dearly.

The present-day narrative finds Tosca sharing her considerable inherited wealth with a harmonious society composed of many of the women–now widowed–who once worked the prince’s land alongside their husbands. How the Sicilian widows go about their tasks, care for one another, and celebrate the rituals of a humble, well-lived life is the heart of this book.

Showcasing the same writerly gifts that made bestsellers of A Thousand Days in Venice and A Thousand Days in Tuscany, That Summer in Sicily, and de Blasi’s marvelous storytelling, remind us that in order to live a rich life, one must embrace both life’s sorrow and its beauty. Here is an epic drama that takes readers from Sicily’s remote mountains to chaotic post-war Palermo, from the intricacies of forbidden love to the havoc wreaked by Sicily’s eternally bewildering culture.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Needs of the Dying: A Guide For Bringing Hope, Comfort, and Love to Life's Final Chapter

David Kessler

List Price: $13.00 By: Harper Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $1.36

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Most will probably find this book useful but it left me annoyed. 2 out of 5 stars.
15 of 18 people found this review helpful.

First I want to say that there are a number of good points and areas of this book that will provide comfort to many. BUT for those who are well read on the subject of death and dying this book leaves a bit to be desired. I think I could have been more invested in this book if the author had written it from something other than the "I" perspective..,to use a previous reviewers term. Additionally, it could have been much more inclusive of people who either don't believe in any god or believe in a different spiritual or emotional guide in their lives. Some of the analogies are a bit cheesy and I found myself doing a bit of eye rolling and saying "give me a break". The issue of dying is emotional enough without needing to add empty sentiment such as ...the loss of a grain of sand impacts the world. A bit much for my taste. For a more inclusive and less self-absorbed perspective I would recommend Final Gifts over this book.

Editorial Review:

In gentle, compassionate language, The Needs of the Dying helps us through the last chapter of our lives. Author David Kessler has identified key areas of concern: the need to be treated as a living human being, the need for hope, the need to express emotions, the need to participate in care, the need for honesty, the need for spirituality, and the need to be free of physical pain. Examining the physical and emotional experiences of life-challenging illnesses, Kessler provides a vocabulary for communication with doctors, with hospital staff, and with each other, and-at a time when the right words are exceedingly difficult to find-he helps readers find a way to say good-bye. Using comforting and touching stories, including new accounts about Michael Landon and Anthony Perkins, he provides information to help us meet the needs of a loved one at this important time in our lives.

Being Nursing Assistant Pocket Guide

Rose Schniedman, Susan Lambert

List Price: $18.00 By: Prentice Hall Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $0.08

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Keeping pace with current developments and improvements in the health care field, this #1-rated resource and reference manual covers the basics of providing care to a variety of patients, and helps users understand and appreciate the scope of the work and duties they will be expected to master and perform within their specific job. Offers 35 detailed chapters on everything from the health care system to communication skills, infection control, safety, the patient's environment, emergency care, measuring vital signs, patient nutrition, specimen collection, care of the surgical patient, neonatal and pediatric care, long-term care, and much more. Adds new material on total hip replacement, hepatitis C, career information regarding how to accept, keep, or properly resign from a job, and expands discussions on Alzheimer's disease, AIDS, the role of today's home health aide, cancer care, and mental health. Integrates challenging, real-life “Nursing Assistant in Action” scenarios throughout, and addresses cultural diversity and its implication on patient care, and the rights of patients and advanced directives. Over 100 color photos support material and add strong visual appeal. For individuals who are considering or learning to become a patient care assistant, certified nursing assistant, nursing assistant, home health aide or other similar title.

Mosby's Essentials for Nursing Assistants

Sheila A. Sorrentino, Bernie Gorek

List Price: $36.95 By: C.V. Mosby Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $2.88

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

No complaints 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I got this for detailed reference since i wanted to refresh my memory on certain skills and other things, i've been working in an assisted living facility for a year now, and you can really forget some skills working in one of these places, anyway, i just got the book today and was reading over it, and it seems to have some very good info, much better than the book that was given to me when i was going to the CNA classes, it's easy to read and understand, but does not have the appearence of something that a child would read, like my other CNA textbook did, it also has multible choice questions at the end of each chapter with the answers in the back of the textbook, so this can also be used by the instructor, i have not watched the enclosed CD yet though, but i'm sure its worth a watch,all in all, the book is worth the forty bucks, even if you are not interested in being a CNA, the info in it can be useful.

Editorial Review:

This concise text is specifically targeted for shorter nursing assistant courses, and focuses on OBRA required content. This 2nd edition includes new and expanded coverage of work ethics, comfort, wound care and oxygen needs. It addresses current responsibilities of the nursing assistant in a concise, readable, highly visual format that appeals to learners of all levels. The clear, logical presentation of procedures with full-color photos and drawings makes it easy for students to learn and understand. Skills included in the National Nurse Aide Assessment Program (NNAAP) are highlighted.

Nursing Assistant Workbook

Barbara Hegner

Amazon Price: $37.95 List Price: $37.95 Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks By: Delmar Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $0.81

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Subjects -> Medicine -> Nursing -> LPN & LVN

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Want to become a CNA? 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

This book is a wonderful guide to get you on your way to becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant. This is a wonderful career to have in the medical field. Helping people as a CNA is extremely rewarding.

Even if you're not looking to become a CNA, this book has excellent information for anyone who is in a caregiving situation. It has information ranging from infant care to elderly care.

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to pursue a career in the healthcare field or anyone who has someone they take care of.

A worthwhile purchase 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This book is a great book. It is easy to understand and follow. Procedures are well explained step by step and color photographs accompany the steps. The color photographs are abundant. There are lots of tables throughout the book. It has a helpful glossary in the back, as well.

The sections of the book are as follows:
Introduction To Nursing Assisting
Scientific Principles
Basic Human Needs And Communication
Infection and Infection Control
Safety And Mobility
Measuring And Recording Vital Signs, Height, And Weight
Patient Care And Comfort Measures
Principles Of Nutrition And Fluid Balance
Special Care Procedures
Other Health Care Settings
Body Systems, Common Disorders, And Related Care Procedures
Expanded Role Of The Nursing Assistant
Response To Basic Emergencies
Moving Forward

Editorial Review:

A complete resource for the nursing assistant in any setting; acute, long-term care and home health care