End With Care Blog

Alternative Burial Options

Posted on October 18, 2017

One of the most significant parts of end-of-life planning is deciding what will happen to our bodies after we die. Many may think that there are only two options: either traditional burial or cremation. But it turns out that there are several unique and alternative burial options.

Traditional funerals and burials can take a serious toll on the environment. Cemeteries take up a huge amount of land, and resources liked wood and steel are used to make caskets. Plus, embalming fluid often contains harmful and polluting chemicals like formaldehyde. In an effort to reduce their ...

Choosing Hospice Care

Posted on October 2, 2017

Choosing to put a loved one into hospice care can be an overwhelming decision. In fact, many caregivers tend to put the decision off, assuming that hospice is a one-way street that will accelerate the dying process of their loved one. This is a persistent misconception. The consequences of delaying hospice care can be significant; a recent study found that patients often wait too long to enter hospice care, thus missing out on the potential meaningful benefits it could offe...

Public Policy Issues of End-of-Life Care

Posted on July 26, 2017

In a just-published issue of the journal Health Affairs (July 2017) devoted entirely to end of life care issues, the editor Alan R. Weil introduces the topic in this way: "Few areas of health care are as personal, or as fraught, as care for people with serious illnesses who are approaching death. At a point in their lives when their needs are often as much social and spiritual as they are medical, people are confronted with a fragmented, rescue-driven health care system tha...

Rooted in History

Posted on July 18, 2017

End With Care is relatively new, but the underlying concept of our service and support offering is tried and tested. Funded by the state in 2001, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Commission on End-of-Life Care was established. The Commission brought together a blue-ribbon group of experts to study and propose ideas to meet the increasing needs of those in the final stages of life and in need of a wide range of resources available throughout the state. The result was the development of an end-of-life content-based website offering users easy and convenient access to the most extensive list...