Quarterly Essay 57: Dear Life

Author: Karen Hitchcock
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781459694750
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Book Description
In this moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end - of - life decisions, frailty and dementia, over - treatment and escalating costs. Ours is a society in which ageism, often disguised, threatens to turn the elderly into a ''burden'' - difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient's wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so. We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark essay by one of Australia's most powerful writers.

Quarterly Essay 57 Dear Life

Author: Karen Hitchcock
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925203182
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 133

Book Description
In this moving and controversial Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock investigates the treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions, frailty and dementia, over-treatment and escalating costs. Ours is a society in which ageism, often disguised, threatens to turn the elderly into a “burden” – difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. While we rightly seek to curb treatment when it is futile, harmful or against a patient’s wishes, this can sometimes lead to limits on care that suit the system rather than the person. Doctors may declare a situation hopeless when it may not be so. We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. And we must change our institutions and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark essay by one of Australia’s most powerful writers. “The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future . . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change.” —Karen Hitchcock, Dear Life

Dear Life

Author: Karen Hitchcock
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781863957168
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
In this essential Quarterly Essay, doctor and writer Karen Hitchcock explores the humane treatment of the elderly and dying through some unforgettable cases. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions, acute care of the frail and the demented, big pharma, over-treatment and attitudes to ageing and death among doctors, patients and their families. Hitchcock reveals a creeping ageism, often disguised, which threatens to turn the elderly into a 'burden' -- difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. Thanks to health-dollar hysteria, the elderly are the only group of medical patients for whom we are trying to limit treatment, hospital stays, interventions and expense. We are justly seeking ways to determine when medical care may be futile, harmful or against a patient's wishes, but this can easily morph into limitations on care that suit the system rather than the patient. Hitchcock argues that we need to plan for the new future when more of us will be old, with an aim of making that time better, not shorter. And that we must change our institutions to fit the needs of an ageing population.

Ageing in a Nursing Home

Author: Rosalie Hudson
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303098267X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
Spending the final chapter of your life in a nursing home is considered, by many, a fate worse than death. Others, however, have found that through enlightened, imaginative care even the frailest of lives can flourish. The key to such a transformation is to replace the constricting custodial centres of the past with a more informed, research-based approach. This book is timely, responding to evidence of the urgent need for change described in the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Final Report: Care, Dignity and Respect and its predecessor subtitled Neglect. In this book, the author proposes a model of care that places the whole person at its centre, sidestepping the constraints of a reductionist funding model that focusses on residents' deficits – and the proprietor’s financial gain. Aged care requires a comprehensive research-based guide to fulfil this aim. Narratives are included throughout the book to reinforce the fact that nursing home care is about individual residents and their unique lives. Topics explored in various chapters include: · Ageing in a Changing Community · Social, Gerontological Care · A Palliative Approach · Community Expectations Ageing in a Nursing Home: Foundations for Care takes a realistic approach that draws on contemporary research and narratives from the unique lives of older Australians who, despite their frailty, teach us how to care. Such knowledge informs and influences their future. The book is a resource intended for all who have a stake in the provision of best practice residential aged care, and all who benefit from such care. Its academic appeal will include those who design and teach courses in aged care: gerontology, general practice medicine, nursing, attendant care, allied health, and chaplaincy. Academics and teachers will find useful, well-referenced material for their courses, together with ample scope for researchers.

Health and the Media

Author: Valentina Marinescu
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476625034
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
Analyzing the relationship between medicine and the media from different perspectives, these new essays fill a gap in this emerging field, providing new information on approaches to health communication and important reevaluations of health literacy theories. The contributors discuss ideas and methodologies across a range of topics, including multifaceted health communication, media coverage of maternal health, the rhetoric of diagnosis in autoimmune illness, media representation of the sick in data-driven healthcare, and health news coverage in print media.

Something Special, Something Rare

Author: Black Inc.
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925203239
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
Something Special, Something Rare presents outstanding short fiction by Australia’s finest female writers. These are tales of love, secrets, doubt and torment, the everyday and the extraordinary. A sleepy town is gripped by delusory grief after the movie being filmed there wraps and leaves. A lingering heartbreak is replayed on Facebook. An ordinary family walks a shaky line between hopelessness and redemption. Brilliant, shocking and profound, these tales will leave you reeling in ways that only a great short story can. Kate Grenville * Mandy Sayer * Penni Russon * Favel Parrett * Tegan Bennett Daylight * Sonya Hartnett * Isabelle Li * Gillian Essex * Brenda Walker * Gillian Mears * Fiona MacFarlane * Joan London * Karen Hitchcock * Charlotte Wood * Tara June Winch * Cate Kennedy * Alice Pung * Anna Krien * Delia Falconer * Rebekah Clarkson ‘This collection is a fantastic line-up of some of Australia’s best writers who simply happen to be women ... the themes explored are as wide-ranging and eclectic as the writers.’ —Sunday Age ‘All the stories here justify that use of “out-standing” in the collection’s subtitle. If pushed to choose one standout, for me it is Favel Parrett’s ‘Lebanon’, which in its three pages manages to convey more emotion than some stories do in 300 ... This beautiful meditation on loss and belonging evokes the Australian tyranny of distance and is a fine example what the short-story form can achieve.’ —The Australian ‘Perfect fodder for a Sunday arvo on the couch, these charming, funny, touching short stories from well-known Australian female writers are what winter was made for.’ —Cosmopolitan ‘A wonderful selection ... the strength of the collection is that it doesn’t define the Australian woman writer as a particular situation and includes writers from various social and cultural backgrounds.’ —Artshub

Griffith Review 68: Getting On

Author: Ashley Hay
Publisher: GRIFFITH REVIEW
ISBN: 1922212490
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
In a world where seventy is the new fifty, old age isn't what it used to be. COVID-19 has changed fundamental concepts of ageing, maturity and mortality. And with the virus's particular impacts on the aged, it's time to challenge – and rectify – the exclusion of the elderly from our culture, and focus on people as people, not as problems to be solved. With exciting new work from Helen Garner, Charlotte Wood, Gabbie Stroud, David Sinclair, Vicki Laveau-Harvie, Samuel Wagan Watson, Andrew Stafford, Jay Phillips, Jane R Goodall, Glenn A Albrecht, Leah Kaminsky, Ailsa Piper and many more, Griffith Review 68: Getting On offers an insightful exploration of the changing truths of ageing – as well as celebrating the triumph of longevity. It's a timely look at the question of how we age successfully – as individuals, as a society, as a population.

The Politics and Possibilities of Self-Tracking Technology

Author: Suneel Jethani
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1800433387
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
The Politics and Possibilities of Self-Tracking Technology focuses on the dialectical relationship between users and designers of wearable technology to examine how datafication processes redefine the body, and explores what this means for the design, administration and study of self-tracking systems.

Doing Critical Social Work

Author: Bob Pease
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000256790
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Book Description
Critical social work encourages emancipatory personal and social change. This text focuses on the challenge of incorporating critical theory into the practice of social workers and provides case studies and insights from a range of fields to illustrate how to work with tensions and challenges. Beginning with an outline of the theoretical basis of critical social work and its different perspectives, the authors go on to introduce key features of working in this tradition including critical reflection. Part II explores critical practices in confronting privilege and promoting social justice in social work, examining such issues as human rights, gender, poverty and class. Part III considers the development of critical practices within the organisational context of social work including the fields of mental health, child and family services, within Centrelink and prison settings. Part IV is focused on doing anti- discriminatory and anti-oppressive practice in social work with particular populations including asylum seekers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, domestic violence survivors, older people and lesbian, gay and transgender groups. Finally, Part V outlines collectivist and transformative practices in social work and beyond, looking at environmental issues, social activism, the disability movement and globalisation. 'A highly valuable addition to social work education and practice literature in Australia and beyond its shores.' Ruth Phillips, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney

Dear Life

Author: Karen Hitchcock
Publisher: Black Inc.
ISBN: 1925203875
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Book Description
'The elderly, the frail are our society. They are our parents and grandparents, our carers and neighbours, and they are every one of us in the not-too-distant future. . . They are not a growing cost to be managed or a burden to be shifted or a horror to be hidden away, but people whose needs require us to change' In Dear Life, using vivid and moving case studies, Karen Hitchcock show what care for the elderly and dying is really like - both the good and the bad. With honesty and deep experience, she looks at end-of-life decisions and over-treatment, frailty and dementia. Throughout she argues against the creeping tendency to see the elderly as a 'burden' - difficult, hopeless, expensive and homogenous. We must plan for a future when more of us will be old, Hitchcock argues, with the aim of making that time better, not shorter. An we must change our institution and society to meet the needs of an ageing population. Dear Life is a landmark book by one of Australia's most powerful writers.