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Viki Kind, a medical ethicist and hospice volunteer who specializes in medical ethics, talks with Joyce about her book, The Caregiver’s Path To Compassionate Decision Making: Making Choices For Those Who Can’t (Home Nursing Caring). Over 5 million people in the United States have Alzheimers, and many more have lost or will lose their ability to decide through strokes, brain injuries, mental illness and developmental disabilities. One in four people will need someone else to decide for them as they face the end of their life. Many are now making or will be in the future making decisions for a loved one, or need that service ourselves.
Viki’s book is a guide to families and healthcare professionals who are going through the difficult process of making decisions for those who are losing or have lost their capacity to think. The Caregiver’s Path is written from her experience and training addressing this growing epidemic.
To be compassionate when caregiving, Viki claims all decisions should be made from the framework of what she calls “substituted judgment,” the decision of what the patient would want.
About our guest
Viki has a master’s degree in Bioethics from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Her BA is in Speech Communication from California State University at Northridge. She also has specialized training in mediation and cultural negotiation from Pepperdine University and UCLA. Viki donates her time by being a hospice volunteer with Hospice of the Conejo in Thousand Oaks, California. She has also been a caregiver for four members of her family for many years.
A few of Viki’s thoughts,
“I would like to teach others to respectfully understand that other people may not see the world as you do but you can find common ground, and this can connect you to one another. With such respect, it is easier to be understanding, kind and peaceful with each other. Don’t assume we are all alike. Instead, ask people how a patient would want to be shown respect or comfort and then treat them as they would want to be treated.”
Joyce and Viki also talk about the Brain Injury Association (www.biausa.org, www.calbia.org) as a resource for people with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and the Well Spouse Association (www.wellspouse.org)
Viki’s website can be found at www.kindethics.com.
Eat to Live!, 02-10-11
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to live the rest of your life in pain or on medication. Dr. Joel Fuhrman speaks with Joyce about how he uses nutriton to reverse disease, reduce high blood pressure, lose unwanted weight, lower your cholesterol levels, prevent heart disease and cancer, and improve your health – all without relying on drugs and fad diets. The importance of good nutrition is emphasized in his dietary program, Eat To Live.
Nutritional science in the last twenty years has demonstrated that colorful plant foods contain a huge assortment of protective compounds, mostly of which still remain unnamed. Only by eating an assortment of nutrient-rich natural foods can we access these protective compounds and prevent the common diseases that afflict Americans. Our modern, low-nutrient eating style has led to an overweight population, the majority of whom develop diseases of nutritional ignorance, causing our medical costs to spiral out of control.
Joel Fuhrman, M.D. is a board-certified family physician who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods. He has been practicing for more than 20 years and established the Center for Nutritional Medicine located in Flemington, New Jersey. Dr. Furhman’s books include: Eat for Health, Eat to Live, Disease Proof Your Child, Cholesterol Protection for Life, and Fasting and Eating for Health.
Joyce talks with Dr. Furhman about the “nutritarian” lifestyle. Among other things, she asks Dr. Furhman:
- What are the main principles of the Nutritarian lifestyle?
- In addition to weight loss, how does following the Nutritarian eating style repair and protect the body (affecting longevity and cancer risk)?
- What is toxic hunger and how does it wreak its havoc?
- How can people be motivated to eat more whole, nutrient-dense food and what are some first steps to changing their diet and sidestepping the temptation of junk foods?
- What kind of results have you witnessed when people embrace the Nutritarian diet-style?
- Your food pyramid varies drastically from the USDA food pyramid. How could a government-recommended pyramid be so off-base?
- Do you have any tips on how to make this way of eating easier and cost and time effective?
You can visit Dr. Furhman’s website at www.drfuhrman.com.
