The Institute for Personality and Ability Testing has certified Robert Fettgather as a Stress Management Trainer, and Medical Hypnosis Seminars of the Los Gatos Institute has certified him in Clinical Hypnotherapy. At Santa Clara University, Graduate Department of Education and Counseling Psychology, his studies included Health Education and Behavioral Medicine. Robert Fettgather has completed Hospice Training with Hospice of the Valley.
Even though every individual’s life story ends with death, there is a great deal of variation from one person to another in how that event manifests itself. The circumstances of an individual’s death influence how both the dying individual herself and the bereaved cope with the emotional turmoil and sense of loss that typically accompany death. The age of the bereaved matters as well because beliefs, attitudes, and responses to death and loss unfold over the lifespan.
Medical personnel distinguish between several types of death. The term clinical death refers to the few minutes after the heart has stopped pumping, when breathing has stopped, and there is no evident brain function, but during which resuscitation is still possible. Presumably those who report near-death experiences were in a state of clinical death
Besides clinical death, Brain death describes a state in which the person no longer has reflexes or any response to vigorous external stimuli and no electrical activity in the brain. Social death occurs at the point when other people treat the deceased person like a corpse.
Reflection Point: Most people state they would prefer to die at home-yet as the following data shows, that is often not the case.
In the industrialized world, death most often occurs in hospitals-37%. That's followed by Decedent’s Home- 30%. Hospice Facility-8%. Nursing Home/Long-Term Care-19%. Other-6%. Note the large numbers of people who die in hospitals and nursing homes. Not so long ago, birth and death were treated as very natural and normal aspects of the lifespan. In The Medicalization of Birth and Death, political scientist Lauren K. Hall argues that medicalization decreases competition, suppresses innovation, and, most importantly, prevents individuals from accessing the most appropriate care.
For the terminally ill, hospice workers and facilities provide an alternative form of care. An obsession with using technology to prolong life has changed how Americans cope with death (part of medicalization). Hospice care provides physical and emotional comfort to patients nearing the end of their lives.
