Hospice Palliative Care Book Reviews &
The Palliative Care Book of the Month
Dr. Woodruff, MD
(Australia)
Visit our Hospice and Palliative Care Bookshop at:
www.hospicecare.com/bookshop/
Book of the Month
END-OF-LIFE CARE IN NEPHROLOGY
From Advanced Disease to Bereavement
Edwina Brown, E. Joanna Chambers, Celia Eggeling
Oxford University Press, 2007
305 pp
ISBN 978-0-19-921105-0
RRP £34.95
This book seems to have arisen from the health care policies in the UK that have mandated the provision of palliative and supportive care for patients with chronic kidney disease. The book is packed with information, a wonderful composite of nephrology and palliative medicine. As such, it will provide insight and guidance in palliative care for the nephrologist, and detailed information on nephrology for those who work in palliative care. Books such as this, which help break down the barriers between palliative care and other departments who manage patients with chronic non-malignant disease, are most welcome.
Roger Woodruff
Director of Palliative Care, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
(October 2007)
Book Reviews
ENHANCING CANCER CARE
Complementary Therapy and Support
Jennifer Baraclough (ed.)
Oxford University Press, 2007
281 pp
ISBN 978-0-19-929755-9
RRP £24.95
Readers of these columns with a good memory will remember Integrated Cancer Care – Holistic, Complementary and Creative Approaches (OUP, 2001), edited by Jennifer Baraclough, then former director of psycho-oncology at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Now, in 2007 and as a Bach Foundation Registered Practitioner in Auckland, New Zealand, she brings us an up-dated review of the field. The first half of the book presents the general principles of holistic cancer care and discusses the evaluation of complementary therapies. The second part of the book describes sixteen specific interventions from acupuncture to the spiritual dimension. As more and more patients use or ask about complementary therapies, there is a need for doctors and other health care professionals in oncology and palliative care to be informed or at least have access to a resource like this book. Similar to my comments in 2001, this book provides a clear and honest account of the role of complementary therapies, although this field of medicine is still in its scientific infancy. This book would be a worthy addition to both the oncology and palliative care libraries.
FROM THE START CONSIDER THE FINISH
A Guide to Excellent End-of-Life Care
Susan R. Dolan and Audrey R. Vizzard
Outskirts Press, 2007
160 pp
ISBN 978-1-4327-1453-6
RRP $US12.95
The title is actually the motto of the family paint company, but I guess it can be applied to palliative care. Intended as a simple handbook to prepare ordinary people for the dying time, the authors give life and hope to a process often filled with fear and misinformation. It is written by a daughter and mother team, both RNs and hospice volunteers, one also an attorney and the other a clinical psychologist. There is good information about the physical dying process and such matters as advanced directives. The anecdotes that they have used to illustrate the problems that occur or how to avoid them are straight from real life. I particularly liked Mollie, the Social Worker who lay across the body of a hospice patient who had died at home in order to prevent the paramedics performing CPR. I am still not sure about the title, but this book discusses serious issues in a manner to which the ordinary person can relate.
GENERATION DANCERS
A Caregiver’s Journey
Mary Donovan Moeller
PublishAmerica, 2006
194 pp
ISBN 1-4241-3874-4
RRP $US 19.95
This is a very personal account, by a trained family therapist, of caring for not one, but five, elderly relatives. Written to serve as a companion to others who are tending their elders, it is a detailed account of one life within a somewhat unusual family. I seriously doubt I would have coped with her mother, so there are lessons to be learned here.
Roger Woodruff
Director of Palliative Care, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
(October 2007)
Top of Page |
