Media
Press Kit
Podcasts
Executor Help
Are you ready to have fun with some taboo talk? David of Executor Help Podcast interviews Lisa Pahl of The Death Deck about the importance of planning for death including estate and financial planning. They pull some cards from The Death Deck and The E•O•L Deck and the conversation gets lively!
Hospice Explained
Lisa of The Death Deck gets to talk about one of her favorite topics, the role of a hospice social worker, with Marie Betcher, RN on her podcast “Hospice Explained”. They also dive into The Death Deck and The new End-of-Life Deck and how to use The E•O•L Deck with hospice patients.
The Heart of Hospice
Medical Aid in Dying is a controversial topic. Hospice Social Worker Lisa Pahl of The Death Deck shares what it’s like to support someone who’s utilizing Medical Aid in Dying.
The Last Playlist with Luis Felipe
What are the songs you want to be played at your funeral and why? Luis Felipe Farfán explores life, death and the hidden fun in planning one's funeral today with Lisa Pahl of The Death Deck
The Bucket
Death is not a game. Or is it? Listen to Lori LoCicero and Lisa Pahl talk about their bold new card game, “The Death Deck” and how it’s helping people have healthy conversations about dying — and living. From sample questions to poignant stories, they explain the reason they created the game and how they use humor and lively game-play to break down resistance and open up communication.
Death By Design
Join us as we chat about life and The Death Deck with host Kimberly C. Paul. Kimberly wants to radically change the way people face end of life, and she’s using her extensive experience as a storyteller to do just that. From the set of Saturday Night Live in New York City, to casting for CBS daytime, Kimberly has spent the last 17 years telling a very different kind of story and uses a myriad of award-winning marketing strategies to share real stories about death and dying and the keys to making every moment matter.
Grow Baby Grow
In this episode, Jayme Allen of Grow Baby Grow has a conversation with The Death Deck's Co-creator, Lisa Pahl, LCSW. They talk about the importance of discussing challenging feelings, how to approach a conversation about death, and the beauty of transforming pain into purpose and even play.
End of Life University
Karen Wyatt of the End of Life University Podcast interviews the co-creators of The Death Deck, a card game to help inspire conversations about death, dying and grief. Lisa Pahl and Lori LoCicero share why they decided to create The Death Deck, how it can be used, and why conversations about death matter.
Death is Hilarious
Tawny Platis spoke with Lori LoCicero on her podcast, Death is Hilarious, about using humor to cope, what inspired her to create the game, and play a few rounds together with listeners.
Heart of Hospice
Lisa is joined again in part five with Gabby Jimenez of The Hospice Heart as part of a series on grief with the Heart of Hospice podcast. They provide suggestions on how to ease your grieving heart with specific attention given to those grievers working in the end of life space.
The Heart of Hospice: A Conversation with the Creators
Helen Bauer and Jerry Fenter from The Heart of Hospice chat with Lisa and Lori on how they teamed up to create a set of cards that work as conversation starters for end of life wishes. Using humor, reflection, and creativity, The Death Deck makes us think about death with less dread. The more you talk about it, the easier it becomes.
Conversations on Death
On this super fun episode, I spoke to Lori LoCicero and Lisa Pahl. They're both the creators of The Death Deck, a game and tool that allows friends and family members to open up and share thoughts, stories and preferences about life and death in a non-threatening and surprisingly fun way. We talked about the birth of their friendship, what went into The Death Deck's creation, some of our favorite cards, and how their lives were impacted by the creation of the game.
Dying Kindness
Lisa and Lori, along with Kate deBartolo from The Conversation Project are interviewed on the topic of how to get the death conversation started on the Dying Kindness Podcast with Cianna Stewart. They discuss tools and personal stories that can help open up discussions on death and dying.
Best Life Best Death
Diane Hullet of the Best Life Best Death Podcast sits down with Lori to discuss how The Death Deck originated and why death is the most universal, yet rarely talked about topic of all.
Bury Me in New Jersey
Lori and Lisa share the story of the origins of the Death Deck and why it’s important to have conversations about death early on the Bury Me in New Jersey Podcast with Sara Wuillermin.
Surviving Breast Cancer
Lisa and Lori provide education on hospice services and suggestions for talking about your end of life wishes with family members on the Breast Cancer Conversations Podcast.
Dying to Live
Lori and Lisa speak with Kristen Elliot of the Dying to Live Podcast about how having conversations with family members now helps increase the confidence they will have when it’s time to make healthcare decisions on your behalf.
Beautiful Side of Grief
Helen Morris of The Beautiful Side of Grief talks with Lori and Lisa about how The Death Deck originated from grief and a desire to help others be more prepared for death .
River's Fog
Lori and Lisa sit down with Andrea Lantz on the River's Fog podcast. Lori shares that she didn’t want others to experience what she did- never talking about death until her loved one was dying. Her posttraumatic growth through leaning into her grief, was the catalyst of creating this fun card game together.
Faith Hope Hospice and Palliative Care
Lori is a guest on Covid Conversations with Faith and Hope Hospice and Palliative Care. She talks about how to discuss end of life choices and the importance of completing an advance directive.
Good Grief Los Angeles
In episode one of Good Grief LA, Carla Harvey sits down with Lori LoCicero, co-creator of The Death Deck, to chat about how her card game is helping folks talk openly about death. We also speak about her inspiration for the game...the loss of her husband. What’s life like after losing your spouse? Tune in for an open conversation on death and dying.
Death is Hilarious
In this podcast, host Tawny Platis chats with Lisa & Lori, the co-creators of The Death Deck: a “lively” party game that lets you explore a topic we’re all obsessed with but often afraid to discuss. In this lighter episode, we talk about how humor can help us deal with tough topics, Lori talks about how she found her sense of humor again after loss, and Lisa shares one of her favorite memories of her Grandma.
The Death Diaries
On this episode, I talk with The Death Deck founders Lisa Pahl and Lori LoCicero. Their motivation and desire to help people become comfortable with conversations about mortality and end of life wishes led to their partnership and creation of the game.
Death Talk
The Death Deck is a card game that "encourages lively conversations and life-changing dialogue" on the topic of death. Today, I talk to the two founders of The Death Deck, Lori LoCicero and Lisa Pahl, LCSW. I played this game with 5 of my friends and I was surprised how engaged they were. It was fun too.
The She Built It Podcast
We all want to take the fear out of death and be able to be comfortable with our mortality," says author, producer, director, and mother, Lori LoCicero. Having lost her husband and business partner to cancer, Lori learned to get through her grief by listening to her intuition. Lori turned a devastating experience into a career leap: She became an entrepreneur and co-creator of The Death Deck, a card game that inspires humor, thought, and conversation from the experiences we all share: Life and Death.
The Heart of Hospice
Don’t let the name fool you. The Death Deck game is really fun! Irreverent, thought provoking, and funny - the discussion prompts and questions of the Death Deck card game help make those awkward conversations about death and dying so much easier.The hosts of The Heart of Hospice talk about using the game with a partner or with a group, employing humor and imagination to discuss a topic that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Listen as Helen and Jerry talk about their own personal views about death.
Dealing With My Grief
What happens when a widow establishes a relationship with the hospice social worker responsible for making her husband as comfortable as during his final days? They create a game designed to allow people to have tough conversations around death and dying, course!
End of Life University
Hospice social worker Lisa Pahl and writer Lori LoCicero share with us how they met and teamed up to create the fun new card game: The Death Deck. Learn all about the game and how you might start incorporating it into your work and family conversations.
The Cards We're Dealt
The Death Deck's own, original podcast! A widow, a hospice social worker and an end-of-life storyteller use humor and personal experience to ask some pretty shocking questions of other death facing writers and thinkers, and terminally ill patients willing to confront their mortality with grace, radical honesty and not just a little humor.
Experience Talks / Kenneth Branagh & Lori LoCicero
KENNETH BRANAGH is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), holds a prestigious Michael Balcon Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and has received five Academy Award® nominations in five different categories.
LORI LoCICERO describes herself as a writer, entrepreneur, and eternal optimist which explains why the loss of both her husband and mother ten years ago inspired her to create The Death Deck, a game designed to spark lively discussions about death.
engAGING Conversations / Sheryl Smith RN
Have you heard the phrase “the devil is in the details”? Well, THEY are right! Lori LoCicero learned the hard way. Lisa Pahl has learned from years of professional experience. Talking about end of life wishes ahead of time, makes things less stressful when death is near.
Good Grief With Cheryl Jones
With the death of a spouse, the future dies too. If you're a planner like Lori LoCicero there are many smaller losses along with the big loss. When Lori's husband died, she became unmoored, as if her tether to earth was broken. Her world seemed to stop cold. How did she come through her grief to a place where she could once again see her way forward?
Articles
I wish we had known to talk about death
"My husband and I talked about almost everything. I wish we'd known to talk about death. Living through the death of my husband taught me the importance of discussing end-of-life wishes with your loved ones
How to help someone with dementia cope with death
There’s no easy answer when helping someone with dementia deal with the loss of their loved one. If we approach the situation from a place of empathy and creativity, we can do our best to ease their way along this difficult terrain.
The Death Deck-A lively game of surprising conversations.
This deck of cards has all kinds of End of Life subject matters, and it is a comfortable way to get families and friends to start having these kind of important conversations.
Taking Life by the Moment
When COVID hit, and lockdowns sent us all inside without an end in sight, it felt strangely familiar to me. I’d never quarantined or lived through a pandemic, but the emotions it stirred reminded me of the year I spent locked inside my house and mind after my husband died of pancreatic cancer.
Don't wait until the end to talk about end of life
Working as a hospice social worker, one of my roles is to help the patient (and their family) prepare for their death. Avoiding these conversations can lead to family members experiencing feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear when the time comes to honor their wishes.
Final conversation: Practical and profound discussions about death
Card games make revealing, vulnerable conversation a little easier — and perhaps even fun — including The Death Deck and the Hello Game.
Getting your affairs in order: how to prepare your online accounts before you die
It may not seem like your Facebook profile would be meaningful… but it’s the main interface of communication you have in that given context so in the digital world … People will want to keep some evidence that you existed in that space in the same way they would keep an urn full of ashes or visit a gravesite.
Discussing end-of-life wishes
Barbara Karnes often gets the question, "How do I start an end of life discussion? How do I get my family to talk about what they want their dying to be like?” Her answer? Just ask them. You may be surprised at how open the conversation will be, how much you will learn, how easy it will be.
The death doula business is booming in 2020-Here's what you need to know about this fascinating (and necessary) profession
Talking about our own death or the death of a loved one can be incredibly uncomfortable, even upsetting. No one wants to think about their own mortality or losing people they care love. But there’s a group working to normalize these discussions—and they're called death doulas.
Death Cafes let participants explore end- of -life questions
After he died, the two women remained closed and eventually developed a card game called The Death Deck. Marketed as "a lively party game about death," the game seeks to make planning for the inevitable less terrifying.
Making Death Conversations Fun
Conversations with loved ones and providers are crucial to the advanced care planning process. Here is a fun solution for those who have their head in the sand. The following games are designed to help people have those conversations in a painless and fun way.
Four epic tools to share (and plan) your end-of-life wishes
We know striking up conversations on last wishes come with their own set of challenges, but these 4 tools we list below make end-of-life planning easy, and, may we dare say, even fun?
Inspiring conversations: five ideas for National Healthcare Decisions Day 2021
Over the years we’ve been “wowed” by the plethora of outreach and events hosted for hundreds of thousands of community members across the globe in service to National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD).
6 fun games to help you talk about end of life care
Included is a list of games that will break the ice and make us a little bit more comfortable with talking about what matters most to us through the end of life.
Playing with death: 5 death positive games and activities
How to actually start a productive conversation about death? These five games and activities can help the death-hesitant to tap into mortality and learn about end-of-life values.
How Hospice Friends Joined to Create a Game About Death
The Death Deck was created by Lori LoCicero and Lisa Pahl. Combining Lori’s personal journey and Lisa’s experience working in hospice care they began a quest to help others be more prepared for death. Their goal with the game is to get conversations around death and grief started and to normalize these conversations.
The Strategy Behind Making The Death Deck A Party Game
Their goal is to get the game and the conversations it generates to as many people as possible. They want to transform the topic of death and dying from a scary chore, to a fun and meaningful way to connect with people you care about.
The Death Deck: A lively party game
It’s a killer question you could pick at random from a hundred or more other matters of life and death in The Death Deck – a lively party game with a focus on lightening up conversations around death.
The In-The-Know Nine
Lisa Pahl and Lori LoCicero have been talking about death and dying for years…not in a creepy, morbid way, but rather with honesty and acceptance. In 2008, Lori experienced the unexpected death of her husband. Lisa works in hospice and the ER and deals with families experiencing loss every day.
Notable Features
Hospice Foundation of America
Starting a conversation about hospice and other end-of-life care preferences with loved ones may feel uncomfortable, but knowing how someone wants to die, how much medical intervention they want, and where they want to die is important.
I am ALS
As we’ve gone through the disease progressing for us and things getting harder, more and more we have come to understand how important it is to take the time to have these conversations and to be thoughtful about the decisions.
Other
Radio: Cookie Jar
Lisa speaks with Christine Bruce on The Cookie Jar with 93.9 FM in Smithers, BC Canada in this two part series. She shares about how reflecting on one’s mortality can change your life’s course and the benefits of having hard conversations.
Radio: Cookie Jar
This week, Lisa returns to the Cookie Jar with Christine Bruce. Lisa explains how The Death Deck helps people relax with the subject of death, and why that’s an important exercise for everyone. She also talks about death rituals and grief math, both useful when someone we care about has died
Youtube: Spirit Vessel
Lisa is interviewed by Jessica Wertz and Amanda Wertz McClellan as part of the Professional Perspectives in Deathcare on the Spirit Vessel website. They discuss her experience using ritual and ceremony within hospice and how death preparation can lead to a less chaotic grief experience for the survivors.
Youtube: Hospice Heart
Gabby Jimenez of The Hospice Heart teamed up with Jennifer O'Brien of The Hospice Doctor's Widow and Lisa Pahl of The Death Deck to answer questions about grief. They discuss what to do with someone's belongings after they die, other people's expectations for your grief, and what NOT to say to someone experiencing grief.
FB Live: Ideapod
Claire O’Berry of the Dying Your Way Podcast interviews Lisa on the role of the hospice social worker and how The Death Deck can open up end of life discussions, especially among those who are reluctant to discuss.
Webinar: Teaching Transitions
The Death Deck creators lead an interactive webinar using The Death Deck through Teaching Transitions with Patty Burgess.