Background: Illness and death are part of life for everyone, including people with intellectual disabilities. This study investigated the extent to which staff communicate about death with people with intellectual disability facing terminal illness or bereavement. Method: Staff who support people with intellectual disability in the UK (n = 690)…

Background: Speech pathologists have a pivotal role in palliative care, assisting patients with swallowing and communication disorders, yet very little is known about the preparedness of speech pathologists to work in this field. Aims: To investigate the preparedness of speech pathologists for working in palliative care. The term 'palliative care'…

Drama is a promising means of delivering educational messages in palliative care. Research studies have found drama to be an effective means of delivering educational messages in other domains of learning, such as teaching health education to children and adults and engaging the general public in health policy development. This paper discusses the…

The purpose of this dialogical qualitative research study was to gain insight into the process of storytelling with adults diagnosed with terminal illness as a way of making meaning of their experiences and lives. The study was informed by the conceptual frameworks of story, storytelling, and story listening which are grounded in the theory of…

Functional Measurement (FM) has been applied to a variety of settings that can be considered as "extreme" settings; that is, settings involving participants with severe cognitive disabilities or involving unusual stimulus material. FM has, as instance, been successfully applied for analyzing (a) numerosity judgments among children as…

Purpose: We examined race/ethnicity and cultural context within hypothetical end-of-life medical decision scenarios and its influence on patient-proxy agreement. Design and Methods: Family dyads consisting of an older adult and 1 family member, typically an adult child, responded to questions regarding the older adult's preferences for…

Dying persons are encouraged to name as durable power of attorney for health care (DPAHC) someone who will thus be empowered to make end-of-life treatment decisions for them in the event that they become incapacitated. We use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to investigate whether and whom older adults designate as their DPAHC. DPAHC…

This article presents a review of the literature on counseling adults with terminal illness, particularly the literature on the nature of preparation that counselors and other professionals who attend to the needs of adults with a terminal illness require. The authors review information and findings from philosophical, psychological, practical,…

Debates the question of suicide as a defensible choice, particularly for the terminally ill, examining the relevance of such issues as the mortality, rationality, and dynamics of the suicidal act, and the legitimacy of physician-assisted suicide. Contrasting perspectives are articulated by two prominent suicidologists as a spur to the reader's…

Discusses supervision and counseling of people with AIDS. Addresses the impact upon the client and the counselor against the background of stigmatization. Conflicts and losses arising at different stages are explored. Discusses implications for the need for supervision to facilitate changes necessary to cope with clients' and counselors' feelings…

Anticipatory grief may have beneficial effects for caregivers of people with HIV infection or AIDS. Illness duration, stigmatization, and multiple losses may impede the caregiver's ability to effectively engage in the grief process, however. Discusses the impact of these aspects of the disease on the anticipatory grief process and mourning tasks…

The relationship between social support and the welfare of the recipient of support has been well documented in the clinical and research literature; however, HIV-positive individuals have seldom been examined in this context. This study attempts to bridge this gap by examining the perceived availability of social support of 77 persons living with…

Counseling for HIV prevention and antibody testing is at the forefront of psychological support services. Recently, there has been a determined effort to develop a range of psychotherapeutic approaches to help people cope with and adjust to living with terminal illness. Introduces a growing interest in the field for counseling those affected by…