Every week since last August, Anne Foerg, a geriatric social worker, meets a 95-year-old veteran who fought the Nazis in Europe.

She takes two buses from Brooklyn to Queens, N.Y., and sits by his bed in a folding chair, which his son sets out for her on Sundays. In another room, his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, is also bedridden.

The ailing veteran tells Foerg about the “interesting things he had experienced, and the horrible things he had experienced,” the people he saw killed, and those he was forced to kill.

“This is his way to make sense and atone, I think, in a lot of ways, for some of the things that he had to do,” Foerg said.

The veteran’s desire to recall the past and share it with someone is not uncommon. The nearness of death causes people to reminisce and to contemplate life, say hospice workers. The process, known as life review, can be therapeutic, they say, but it can also lead to depression, anxiety and guilt.

“I think it is safe to say that several hundred patients are helped each year to take time reflecting on their life, reviewing the enjoyments, the sorrows, the people they loved and so on,” said the Rev. Paul A. Metzler, director of community and program services at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, the largest hospice care provider in metropolitan New York.

VNSNY has a guidebook titled “Lifetime Review” that helps volunteers learn how to help patients through the process.

Sara Weeks has been visiting a 90-year-old woman, E.W., every week for the past year. VNSNY insisted on patient anonymity to protect patient privacy.

“One of my favorite quotes from her is ‘God must have a plan for me to keep me here for so long because I’ve lived a really long life, haven’t I?’ ” Weeks quoted her as saying. “And then she’ll launch into a story. It’s terrific, actually, to hear her.”

E.W. lights up when she and Weeks discuss her childhood. She’ll recall a fond memory and say something like “Now, isn’t it funny how I can remember something like that?”

“It’s her way of realizing what a long life she’s led and that she’s done an incredible amount of things over the years,” said Weeks. “It helps put that into perspective for her.”

Robert N. Butler, a physician, gerontologist, psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author believes that society should understand reminiscence in old age as a process he has coined “life review.”

“By and large, when people get older there is a tendency to review life,” Butler said in a telephone interview.

The process can be therapeutic, though “some people may be overwhelmed and go into depression.”

“But it’s also a great opportunity to resolve issues in your life,” Butler said. “You get a chance to make amends.”

Bob, a 70-year-old New Yorker who didn’t want his full name to be used, to protect his family’s privacy, is dying of prostate cancer. He spends much of his days writing.

“When I learned I was going to die, I started to focus on how I would be remembered,” he said in his apartment near Central Park.

Bob sat by a window left ajar so he could smoke—a habit he picked up a few months ago. His smooth skin concealed his years, and his eyes conveyed only the slightest hint of lethargy. The cane resting against a file cabinet was the only sign of illness.

Bob is a husband, father, grandfather, published author, meteorologist, oceanographer and businessman who has taught in universities and lectured throughout the U.S. and in Europe. He has a black belt in jujitsu, which he keeps on the top shelf of his closet.

On his desk lie several beige folders, each containing a project he intends to finish.

He is working on a book about climate change, and he writes poems, essays, short stories and e-mails to his daughters. He also discusses everything with his wife of 44 years, whom “he loves now more than ever.”

“Maybe 10 percent of my experience now is life review, thinking about things I could have done better,” he said. “But that leads me to ‘What can I do about those now?’ You can’t change things you’ve done in the past, but you can make peace with them.”

For those who are not in a position to write a book, the recording or transcribing of their personal histories permits them to leave a legacy behind.

“Memoirs, autobiographies or life reviews do not necessarily represent the unvarnished truth,” gerontologist Butler wrote nearly 50 years ago. “But they are the last possible edition of the volume each of us has spent a lifetime creating and amending.”

The process, Bob said, has not been without its challenges and dark moments, but overall it has been a positive experience.

“Dying,” he said, “gives you a unique perspective.”