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Description
The news of a loved one's impending death is often accompanied by an initial reaction of fear. In this program, introduced by NewsHour's Ray Suarez and facilitated by Frank Ostaseski, founder of San Francisco's Zen Hospice Project, seven everyday people reflect on their experiences with loss, grief, and healing. Discussing what they fear, how they would say good-bye, and other deeply personal topics, some discover the transformation and healing that...
Description
Franca and Peter Napoli said a long goodbye to their 4-year-old daughter Christina, who died of a brain tumor. Linda and Glen Woods lost two sons, one in a car accident, one to suicide. And Margaret and former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau's son Michel drowned. In this powerful program, three couples describe the ordeal of losing a child and their search for meaning in the face of tragedy that can become an all-consuming grief. It is a search...
Description
This informative program explores the choices open to terminally ill patients and their families, presenting the options available for comfortable end-of-life care that attends to physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Medical experts and caregivers discuss the difficult choices that arise, including the moral and legal controversies and medical options available when a cure is no longer an option. Important information about living wills and health...
4) Solo
Description
Traditionally, a Japanese household contained an extended family, several generations under one roof. Now, cultural sensibilities and sweeping demographic changes have meant that young and old choose to live apart. This program examines how these factors have affected care of the elderly in a country with the longest-lived population in the world. Seniors discuss the challenge of living alone in a transformed society. Creative new arrangements are...
Description
In Tunisia, a home for the elderly is quite unusual since most older people are automatically cared for by their families. This program explores how Tunisia, both as a state and a culture, negotiates the task of providing for its growing senior population, a task many Tunisians see as illustrative of key differences between European and Arab values. Along with a tour of a home for the elderly in Tunis, the program canvasses the views of younger people...
Description
Though aging has its challenges, depression and its frequent companion, substance abuse, need not be among them. This program dispels the myth that there is something inherently depressing about aging. It explores the complex relationship between depression, alcohol, and substance abuse, showing how knowledge of symptoms, family support, and early treatment can restore the capacity for pleasure and contentment in most seniors' lives. Interviews with...
Description
Funerals are the most common death rituals in the world, but there are other ceremonies that involve the dead, often with very different purposes. For the Aghori mystics of India, the corpse isn't something to be avoided, but rather embraced. This program examines the ways in which cultures both foreign and familiar confront the ultimate taboo. From the practice of exhuming the bones of ancestors in Taiwan to that of embalming the deceased in the...
Description
Although many cultures venerate their elders, looking to them as living repositories of wisdom and experience, America, with its "forever young" self-image, does not. Lacking societal support, how are Americans supposed to age well-to grow older with grace and understanding-and make life's final decades a meaningful experience? This program features the stories of exemplary individuals who, despite the inhospitable social climate, are growing older...
11) Growing Old
Description
Most people are unwilling to confront aging-even many seniors live in denial of it. Some fear losing their independence and autonomy, while others simply can't accept the graying of their hair. This program explores the varied landscape of aging in America, presenting the realities-physical, medical, emotional, and economic-of growing old in a youth-obsessed society. Whether they are well off in retirement, financially marginalized, in good health,...
Description
Thanks to recent advances in medicine, longevity is on the rise. But will America's youth-oriented society finally develop the maturity to respect its elders? And will the Medicare and Social Security infrastructures be able to meet the needs of the Baby Boomers? In this program, experts including medical ethicist David Solomon, the directors of the Aging with Dignity Institute and the Forever Learning Institute, and the author of Another Country....
Description
What does it mean to die? Is death a form of transition to a higher plane, mere physical dissolution, or something else altogether? In this program, Robert J. Kastenbaum, Professor of Communication at Arizona State University; historian Michel Vovelle, of the Sorbonne; anthropologist Luce Des Aulniers; and clinical psychologist Marie-Frederique Bacque delve into the ways in which science and religion have attempted to come to terms with humankind's...
Description
Part of the aging process is inevitable-but only part. This program explains the effects of aging on the human mind and body, explores the "damage" and "cell clock" theories about why cells wear out, and examines the lifestyle habits that affect both longevity and the quality of life; these include exercise, regular checkups for cancer, proper diet, moderate drinking, and no smoking. The program points out that it is never too late to mend one's ways....
Description
Aging is a series of transitions, some gradual and some abrupt. How do people come to terms with these changes? This program examines the aging process from beginning to end, defining age from the viewpoints of biology, psychology, society, functionality, and the law. The impact of current behaviors and attitudes on one's future self is also discussed, as well as dying-itself a part of life-and the stages of grieving. In addition, the program addresses...
16) Prisoners of age
Description
Raising complex and timely questions about the warehousing of America's prison population, this program accompanies photographer Ron Levine on his mission to depict the physical, emotional, and psychological conditions of aging inmates-including those nearing death. Levine focuses his work on Alabama's Hamilton Institute for the Aged and Infirm, the first prison created specifically for elderly convicts. Through Levine's documentation and interviews,...
Description
More and more Americans are looking for opportunities to exert some measure of control over where and how they die. In this program, veteran PBS journalist Bill Moyers unravels the complexities underlying the many choices at the end of life, including the bitter debate over physician-assisted suicide. Three patients, their families, and their doctors discuss some of the hardest decisions, including how to pay for care, what constitutes humane treatment,...
Description
In the drive to save lives, American medical technology prolongs the dying process for many, creating a number of end-of-life scenarios that have done much to rob death of its dignity and significance. This Fred Friendly Seminar, moderated by Harvard Law School's Arthur Miller, brings together a diverse group of panelists, including Yale professor Sherwin Nuland, author of How We Die; bioethicist Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania; Rabbi...
Description
It has been estimated that 1.5 million elder Americans suffer neglect, mistreatment, and even financial exploitation at the hands of their own families. In this program, ABC News correspondents Diane Sawyer and Marti Emerald probe what is quickly becoming the fastest-growing family crime in the U.S. Together they investigate several cases of elder abuse and examine the efforts of crusaders such as the members of the ground-breaking Fiduciary Abuse...
Description
To decrease the suffering of terminally ill patients, some doctors routinely prescribe strong painkillers-medications that, in effect, actually hasten the patient's death. What distinguishes such treatment from physician-assisted suicide? This program discusses legislative initiatives designed to protect patients from "disguised euthanasia"--And addresses the volatile question of whether such laws are a threat to the professional judgment of doctors....
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