Booklet: Active Dying

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This guidebook is for friends, family, caregivers, and volunteers who are graciously tending to the dying. It contains tips and tools for comfort and care. There is an emphasis on dignity, honor, compassion, sacredness, and education. Learn how to support the patient and their loved ones during their darkest time.

The caregiver’s guide to the stages (signs and symptoms) of dying. When we understand that what is happening is, in fact, normal, it helps us to face our fears and reservations about helping the ones we love in their last months, hours, and days. This is for friends, family, caregivers, and volunteers who are graciously tending to the dying. It contains tips and tools for comfort and care. There is an emphasis on dignity, honor, compassion, sacredness, and education. Learn how to support the patient and their loved ones during their darkest time.

The print is larger for easy reading and there are 26 easy-to-comprehend pages using non-medical terminology. The perfect resource for families new to hospice to gently explain the stages of dying and how to assist their loved ones. Hospices use this booklet as an information source for their families.

Review
This booklet absolutely changed the way I was able to experience the death of my mother. In both very practical and spiritual ways. My siblings and I were positioned for my mom to have a good death—at home with a hospice team. This book was a huge comfort. And that kind of comfort⁠—in the situation of sitting alongside my dying mother⁠—is not transitory; it stays with you; it will stay with me forever. 
This book is a blessing. ⁠—Margaret M.

From the Introduction:

An End-of-Life Doula is specially trained to guide and support someone who is dying. The doula is a non-medical professional that works alongside the patient’s medical team (including hospice.)

Sometimes, things are happening too fast or your loved one is not receptive to the doula concept. I have assembled this booklet so that whoever sits at the bedside of a dying person can gain a little insight into the work of a doula and usher calm and support into the atmosphere of the dying.

What we need is to establish a person that can navigate the beauty and difficulty of dying—someone to be a gentle, calm, and respectful Sherpa along the journey to death. Someone who can honor the wishes of the dying; to see that they are emotionally and spiritually supported during their final days.
Just as the birthing process is most difficult for the person doing the birthing, the dying process is most difficult for the person doing the dying. It takes a lot of energy to enter, as well as to exit, this life.

About the Author

Sheila Burke is a best-selling author and End-of-Life Doula in Northeast Ohio. Active Dying: What It’s Like to Die and How to Provide Care and Comfort to the Dying (2022) is your guide to bedside care for your loved one. While it would be amazing if everyone could have an End-of-Life Doula, the fact is many do not. In that case, you need guidance on how to help those you love in a gentle, loving, and sacred way.

Sheila became an End-of-Life Doula after her husband died from aggressive cancer. The experience of home hospice and being the primary caregiver was life-altering. Providing emotional and physical support to her dying husband and their children led her to work with the dying. Sheila was trained through INELDA (International End of Life Doula Association.)

Topics covered:
Providing Emotional and Spiritual Support
What is a Vigil?
Planning the Vigil
Conducting the Vigil
What if my loved one isn’t unconscious or calm, but restless, delirious, or afraid?
Signs of Imminent Death
Breathing Patterns
Other Signs: What It Looks Like When a Person is Dying
Death imminent: weeks to days
The Final Week/Days
The Final Day or Two
Providing Comfort Care
The Importance of Touch During Dying
Controlling Pain
What to Do or Say When a Person is Dying
Hearing—the Last Sense to Go
What to Do After Death

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No minimum order
Click for Quantity Discounts (100+)
Click for Custom Branding Options for Hospices, Agencies, Organizations