Talking about death with loved ones can be extremely difficult, especially when it's their death or your own demise.

Health care professionals, religious organizations and community leaders are taking steps to make end-of-life discussions easier, simpler and less painful.

It begins with starting the conversation.

"I think sometimes as a society, we think if we don't talk about death, then it won't happen," said Cindy Shannon, director of community outreach for Hospice of North Idaho. "Historically, we're not really very good about talking about death, planning for death or accepting death."

Shannon, of Coeur d'Alene, is a licensed clinical social worker who is leading "The Conversation Project" in North Idaho. It is a program dedicated to helping people be more open about how they want to spend their final days and the care they prefer to receive at the ends of their lives, whether it be to deny the use of a feeding tube or allow resuscitation when their heart stops beating. This includes several scenarios, from following the wishes of terminally ill patients to managing care for accident victims who are unable to speak for themselves.

Shannon said the movement was started by a woman who was frustrated when she lost her mother.

"Obviously, no one wants to spend a lot of time thinking about it," Shannon said. "Once you have that conversation with your family, then it's something they can all remember together when the time comes."

End-of-life issues were addressed Saturday morning in a seminar presented by Hospice and Respect Life St. Pius X in St. Pius X Catholic Church in Coeur d'Alene. About 30 people attended the seminar, which included information about how to talk to loved ones and doctors about end-of-life decisions, the differences between living wills and Idaho physician orders for scope of treatment (POST) and ethics of faith.

"Your job is to keep asking questions," said Peggy Hodge, a Hospice nurse coordinator with more than eight years of pain management experience. "Get those questions answered."

Hodge, of Rathdrum, talked about when she lost her first husband, and how managing his unexpected death was not complicated by end-of-life decisions because they had talked about them ahead of time.

"It is hard to face the fact that we all have an end to life - realization is not if we die, but when we die," said seminar attendee Lois Getzfrid of Dalton Gardens. "This program, with a great information panel of professionals, helped us to understand what legal steps we can take in advance to make a difficult time easier for the patient and their family."

According to www.theconversationproject.org, information from a survey of Californians by the California HealthCare Foundation in 2012 found that "60 percent of people say that making sure their family is not burdened by tough decisions is 'extremely important'" while 56 percent "have not communicated their end-of life wishes."

"You never know," said Casey Corbin, executive director of the Idaho Quality of Life Coalition. He referenced the legal battle that took place in the case of Terri Schiavo, who was in a vegetative state and on life support for 15 years.

"Her family fought. It destroyed an entire family," said Corbin, of Boise. "That's what's most important, is not you or I deciding, but the person deciding for themselves."

Corbin said Idaho has come a long way in hospice utilization rate, now up to 56 percent from 17 percent 14 years ago. Hospice provides care for those who are terminally ill.

"That's dramatic," he said. "We're doing much better than the average of 45 percent in the rest of the country."

Corbin said the Idaho Quality of Life Coalition is working on a statewide curriculum that will provide end-of-life training for people who are willing to go back to their communities and share the information and resources with others.

"The problem is we have lots of access, but most of this state is rural," he said.

Corbin said these training sessions should start occurring by next spring or summer. People will learn about advance directives, which usually include a living will and statement of how a person wishes doctors proceed if he or she cannot communicate, as well as what steps to take to get everything ready in case of the unexpected. And, Corbin said, it's not just elderly people who should be looking into completing their end-of-life paperwork.

"The biggest mistake is that young people think that this isn't about them," he said.

Corbin said Idaho is one of the few states that has a program where individuals can fill out a health care proxy (even online), keep a copy in their wallet and be in a database so health care professionals and first responders will know exactly what to do in case of an emergency. The proxy includes a living will and durable power of attorney for health care so a patient or victim will still be in control of their lives even though they may be unconscious or unable to speak.

"You can't plan for what the living will covers," he said.

Shannon said the goal of "The Conversation Project" as well as end-of-life training sessions and seminars is to "help people, decrease stress, have a more peaceful death and feel better about decisions made when there is a crisis."

"We believe that there are less problems at end of life if patients and families have had these conversations," she said.

Info: www.dyingwell.org, www.honi.org, www.ag.idaho.gov