抄録
In the practice of home hospices, death education is extremely important for the patient and family . However, little literature on the subject has been available, indicating that this field has a lot of unsettled problems. The educational effects of the death education carried out by the author, using his distinctive philosophy and theory, are analyzed in 16 cases of the practice of home hospice which culminated in the eventual home death. The actual death education for patients and family was performed at least once in each phase along with the time course of home hospice, for a total of more than four times. The acceptance of the death of a patient was judged according to the way the patient spent the remaining time and according to the attitude of living with hope of life after death. In the author's judgement, 14 patients out of 15 were apparantly able to accept their own deaths. Additionally, in 5 cases out of 16, an autopsy was carried out. In only one case, the colleague doctor advised the autopsy to the family, whereas in the other cases it was performed with the patient's or family's spontaneous decisions without the author's advice. Since the author considers the ultimate aim of death education in the home hospice to be that the patient and family live out the final time of life accepting the death, death education which the author performed is thought to be effective in certain degree.
