One purpose the family owned funeral home

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1 The Independent Funeral Group eralgroup.com 503 National Drive Maryville, TN Phone: Cell: One purpose the family owned funeral home June of 2017 Dear Member Firms and Endorsed Partners, ROUNDTABLE NEWS! BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA From top-left: Tim and Dawn Pounders of Lowndes Funeral Home in Mississippi, Adam Atchley of Atchley Funeral Homes in Tennessee, Dr. Jason Troyer of Mt. Hope Grief Services, John Cook Rudder from Rudder Funeral Homes in Alabama, James Sells from Christian-Sells Funeral Home in Tennessee, Sam Beck from Beck Funeral Home in Georgia, Gary Smith from Radney-Smith Funeral Home in Alabama, Geoff Halbrooks from Peck Funeral Home in Alabama, and Craig Bodiford from K.L. Brown Funeral Homes in Alabama.

2 KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE ROUNDTABLE: Wednesday, June, 21st, 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee (6 Spots Available) LOCATION: Marriott Downtown, 501 E Hill Ave, Knoxville, TN PHONE: TIME OF ROUNDTABLE: 12:30 PM 4:30 PM MODERATOR: Dr. Jason Troyer of Mt. Hope Grief Services SECRETARY: Brad Kuchnicki of The Independent Funeral Group and Funeral Compliance, LLC DINNER: Ruth s Steakhouse (0.3 Miles from Hotel) Time to Be Announced NOTE: Please make sure you give as much notice as possible if you will not be able to attend. In order for this to be a success, we need to make sure we have the allotted number. WHAT YOU NEED TO BRING: We want each funeral home to bring data on their funeral home and it is to include: 1. Cremation Rate (If possible, a five-year analysis) 2. Do you have an active Aftercare Program? If so, please be prepared to explain. 3. One issue you are trying to find solutions to, including what you have tried. (We would love to hear what has worked and what has failed) NOTE: To assist Dr. Jason Troyer and the other attendees, we expect this information to accompany you to the Roundtable. NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE ROUNDTABLE: Wednesday, July 19 th, 2017 in Nashville, TN (3 Spots Available) LOCATION: John A. Gupton College, 1616 Church St, Nashville, TN PHONE: TIME OF ROUNDTABLE: 12:30 PM 4:30 PM MODERATOR: Dr. Jason Troyer of Mt. Hope Grief Services SECRETARY: Brad Kuchnicki of The Independent Funeral Group and Funeral Compliance, LLC DINNER: Time and Location to Be Announced NOTE: Please make sure you give as much notice as possible if you will not be able to attend. In order for this to be a success, we need to make sure we have the allotted number. WHAT YOU NEED TO BRING: We want each funeral home to bring data on their funeral home and it is to include: 1. Cremation Rate (If possible, a five-year analysis) 2. Do you have an active Aftercare Program? If so, please be prepared to explain. 3. One issue you are trying to find solutions to, including what you have tried. (We would love to hear what has worked and what has failed) NOTE: To assist Dr. Jason Troyer and the other attendees, we expect this information to accompany you to the Roundtable. Roundtable Topics/Themes

3 A) Responding to Increases in Cremation How are you responding to the increase in cremation rates? - Related Topics: pricing, marketing/advertising, providing aftercare related to cremation, encouraging services/rituals w/cremation, etc. B) Promoting Community Engagement How do you create engagement with community members before and after they need your services? - Related Topics: promoting the value of funerals, marketing your services (traditional & content marketing), sharing your story/history, communicating the value of pre-need, etc. ROUNDTABLES ARE OPEN TO ALL MEMBER FIRMS OF THE TIFG, REGARDLESS GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION. PLEASE PARTICIPATE AND BE PART OF THE SOLUTION info@theindependentfuneralgroup.com or call Brad at to reserve a seat. If you or your members ever have any questions, please feel free to or call me at Rebecca Dobey Funeral Service Credit Union President

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14 'Lazy' millennials are fine with attending funerals online in UK By Agencies London Posted 05-May-2017 There is a growing trend of crematoriums offering live-streaming of funeral services in the UK with millennials more open to the idea of attending the last rites of loved ones online than older people, according to a survey in the UK. The survey conducted by an insurance company in the UK has found that one-third of the adults between the ages of 18 and 34 would have no problem "attending" a ceremony virtually, compared with just 23 per cent of those between the ages of 35 and 54. The figures suggest that the trend is growing rapidly. Data released last October suggested that just one in five crematoriums could offer the service. The new survey suggested that its popularity might be limited to younger people. Citation:

15 Published On: Thu, May 18th, 2017 Asia / Business / Environment / Latest Stories By New Delhi Times Bureau At Hong Kong Trade Fair, Funerals Go Green, High Tech Death is inevitable, but it doesn t have to be bad for the environment. Caskets made of paper and wicker coffins on display at a recent Hong Kong funeral industry trade highlighted a trend toward green burials in an industry booming as Asia s population rapidly ages. Chinese businessman Alex Sun s company, Shandong Ecoffin International, makes wicker and seagrass coffins, which first became popular in the West and are now catching on in Asia. Basket-weaving dates to the Tang Dynasty ( AD) in northeast China s Shandong province, where Sun s factory uses fast-growing willow reeds to make caskets that are an ecofriendly alternative to wood. Eco funerals are a global trend, Sun said. European customers already know about this product, while Asian customers are also interested in it and would love to learn more, he said. Interest is especially high in the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam as well as mainland China, he said. Mood is light at funeral expo The mood was bright, not funereal, as coffin makers, morticians, funeral home operators and entrepreneurs converged on Hong Kong this week for the Asia Funeral and Cemetery Expo & Conference, a trade fair held every other year. Participants were pitching caskets for pets, Italian hearses, German cremators with high-tech filters and Japanese mobile embalming units. From China, Truthkobo Jewelry offered pendants made with ashes from deceased relatives or pets while Shenyang Roundfin was looking for international distributors for its autopsy tables, morgue fridges and body bags. Aging populations The death industry is a lucrative market: Asia s aging population is projected to hit 923 million by midcentury, according to the Asian Development Bank, putting the region on track to become the oldest in the world. The region s funeral services market has been growing steadily and is now worth about $62.6 billion a year, with China accounting for nearly half of that, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor. This is a very promising industry in China, said Gloria Chuang, marketing director at Yu Fu Xiang Memorial Group, a Chinese funeral services company.

16 But she said the industry in China needs to expand and modernize. Most funeral home operators are family-run outfits selling one-size-fits all services. They re not transparent about prices and other information for services and products like coffins and urns, she said. That s partly because, as in many places, talk of death is taboo. Our culture dictates that Chinese people are very sensitive to talk about matters of death. Therefore this industry has become a very closed one, she said. Elaborate funerals Under Mao Zedong, who ruled China until his death in 1976, elaborate funerals, like many other customs, were officially condemned as feudal superstition fell out of favor, though they persisted in many rural areas. Such rituals have seen a revival in recent years as the economy boomed, as the newly rich use lavish funeral rites to show off their social status and the accumulation of wealth. In 2013, the government banned Communist Party members from holding extravagant funerals for family members, seeking to curb waste, corruption and pomp. At the expo On the Hong Kong show floor, the Luen Hing Coffin Co. s paper casket looked deceptively like a traditional one. It costs more because of a specialized manufacturing process for its honeycomb paper construction, but burns twice as fast as wood in a crematorium, saving funeral operators time and money, said General Manager Carol Chan. On display at Yu Fu Xiang s booth were custom-designed cremation urns adorned with faces of the deceased and an ornate elite longevity costume resembling robes worn by Chinese emperors. Chuang said attitudes are changing and demand is growing for more personalized service as the children of the older generation become wealthier and more tech savvy. Cultural sensitivities regarding death are starting to ease, making it more acceptable to talk about preparing for the afterlife, she said at one of the fair s seminars. Other speakers said that despite lingering resistance, there s growing interest in online memorials that let family members upload pictures to the cloud and pay respects using their smartphones. Investors interested The prospect of a lucrative investment opportunity even drew investors from outside the industry to the fair. Piyanuch Wattanasiritananwong and a friend came from Thailand, where they run a property business, after hearing about the show from a contact. We want to know what opportunities there are in this industry because everybody dies, she said. She pondered the possibility of starting a coffin business based on recycling an elaborate outer shell is removed and reused while the plain inner box is cremated with the body. I don t want people to spend a lot of money but still have a nice farewell, she said. Credit : Voice of America (VOA) Photo Credit: AP Citation:

17 Is a Flint funeral home mixing up bodies? Posted By Alysa Zavala-Offman on Thu, May 4, 2017 at 1:40 PM Two brothers were horrified when they arrived at their mother's funeral to find the body in the casket was a stranger. In a story first reported by WNEM, Maurice Dunn and Joe Leverette said Swanson Funeral Home denied that the body in the casket was anyone other than their mother, Alice Dunn. "It was a total stranger dressed in the clothing that my brother Joey [picked out] and the wig selected for our mother," Dunn told WNEM. Dunn said funeral home workers were unprofessional and continuously denied they'd prepared and dressed the wrong body for the funeral. Eventually, they brought out the correct body, but offered little explanation as to how to mix-up happened. "Admit your negligence," Dunn told WNEM. "Second of all, apologize full heartedly." According to WNEM, Swanson Funeral Home is under state investigation after after a state inspector found decomposing bodies in a garage. Citation:

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23 Creutzfeldt Jakob disease Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) is a condition caused by a prion (infectious protein material that is incorporated to healthy tissue and leads to disease). It is a very rare condition (incidence 1/ per year). Like all other prion diseases (Kuru, Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vcjd), Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Syndrome and Fatal Familial Insomnia), the tissue analysis of patients with CJD shows neuronal loss, proliferation of glial cells, absence of inflammation and a spongiform aspect due to the presence of vacuoles. CLASSIFICATION & ETIOLOGY: It may be classified as: Sporadic CJD (scjd, ~90% of the cases) It is believed to occur due to a random error of the metabolism that leads to pathogenic prion formation (conversion of regular cellular prion PrPC to scrapie prion PrPSc) on the brain cells. Most of the cases involve people around 60 years of age Variant CJD (vcjd) It is the kind that may be associated with the consumption of bovines infected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It affects younger patients (~28 years) and has a slower deterioration speed (~14 months) when compared to scjd (~5 months), with more prominent psychiatric symptoms. Familial CJD (fcjd) A mutation on the PRNP gene, located at the short of chromosome 20, causes the production of prions. Other familial prion diseases include Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI) and Gerstmann- Sträussler-Scheinker disease (GSS). Iatrogenic CJD (icjd) Infection occurs due to procedures, transplants, transfusions and other interventions. SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS: Once the first symptoms start, the disease is rapidly progressive (~5 months). Cognitive and behavioral deterioration that progresses rapidly is a common early feature. Psychiatric symptoms may be present as well. Myoclonus is also another common feature and it can often be induced by startle. Extrapyramidal symptoms (such as ataxia) may also be present. DIAGNOSIS: It is important to exclude alternative diagnosis (infections, paraneoplastic syndromes, autoimmune conditions, metabolic abnormalities, other dementia types). MRI may show cortical changes in proton density and DWI, as well as hyper intensity of the head of the caudate and putamen on T2 and FLAIR. EEG in CJD may show a pattern of biphasic or triphasic periodic synchronous sharp wave complexes (PSWC).

24 Cerebrospinal fluid analysis may show an increase in tau protein and protein. Some patients with prion disease may have detectable prions in their urine. However, urine tests are not yet common diagnostic practice for CJD. CDC`s DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA: 1. Sporadic CJD Definite diagnosis: Diagnosed by standard neuropathological techniques; and/or immunocytochemically; and/or Western blot confirmed protease-resistant PrP; and /or presence of scrapie-associated fibrils. Probable diagnosis: Rapidly progressive dementia; and at least two out of the following four clinical features: Myoclonus Visual or cerebellar signs Pyramidal/extrapyramidal signs Akinetic mutism AND a positive result on at least one of the following laboratory tests: a typical EEG (periodic sharp wave complexes) during an illness of any duration; and/or a positive cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) assay in patients with a disease duration of less than 2 years Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) high signal abnormalities in caudate nucleus and/or putamen on diffusionweighted imaging (DWI) or fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) AND without routine investigations indicating an alternative diagnosis. Possible diagnosis: Progressive dementia; and at least two out of the following four clinical features: Myoclonus Visual or cerebellar signs Pyramidal/extrapyramidal signs Akinetic mutism AND the absence of a positive result for any of the three laboratory tests that would classify a case as probable (see tests a-c above) AND duration of illness less than two years AND without routine investigations indicating an alternative diagnosis. 2. Iatrogenic CJD Progressive cerebellar syndrome in a recipient of human cadaveric-derived pituitary hormone; or sporadic CJD with a recognized exposure risk, e.g., antecedent neurosurgery with dura mater implantation.

25 3. Familial CJD Definite or probable CJD plus definite or probable CJD in a first degree relative; and/or Neuropsychiatric disorder plus disease-specific PrP gene mutation. The definitive diagnosis requires neuropathological analysis (brain biopsy) showing features of prionic disease. TREATMENT: Currently there is no effective treatment for CJD. The medical care should be focused on providing supportive comfort for the patient and family. REFERENCES & FURTHER READING: 1. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Classic (CJD). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Page last reviewed: February 6, Parchi P et al. Consensus classification of human prion disease histotypes allows reliable identification of molecular subtypes: an inter-rater study among surveillance centres in Europe and USA. Acta Neuropathol Oct;124(4): Gambetti P et al. Creutzfeldt Jakob disease. Encyclopedia of Movement Disorders, Volume National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center. Citation:

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28 "In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them." - Aldo Leopold