UNIT V – LATE ADULTHOOD (Old age)

B) MANY FACES OF DEATH: CARE OF THE DYING.

D) DEATH & BEREAVEMENT: ACROSS THE LIFESPAN
F) FINDING MEANING & PURPOSE IN LIFE & DEATH Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR
B)MANY FACES OF DEATH: CARE OF THE DYING.
► THE MANY FACES OF DEATH

-Death is a biological fact

- It also has social, psychological, developmental, medical and
ethical aspects
- Death is generally considered to be the cessation of bodily
processes

- Thanatology : study of death and dying.

Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR
 CARING OF THE DYING
►

Movements have arisen to make dying more humane.

► HOSPICE CARE
► Is personal, patient and family centred care for the terminally ill

* Its focus is on
► PALLIATIVE CARE :
❖ Relief of pain and suffering,
❖ Controlling of symptoms,
❖ maintaining a satisfactory quality of life, and
❖ allowing the patient to die in peace and dignity

* It usually takes place at home

* Such care can be given in a hospital or another institution or through a combination of home and institutional care.
• Self-help support groups for dying people and their families
• Family members often take an active part
- Dignity-conserving care depends not only on how patients are treated, but on how they are viewed

Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR

 DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN
► Typical changes in attitudes towards death across the lifespan depend both on cognitive development and on the normative
or non normative timing of the event
► CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
- Between the ages of 5 and 7: most children understand that death is irreversible- that a dead
person, animal or flower cannot come to life again.
- children realize two other important concepts about death
* It is universal( all things die) and therefore inevitable
* A dead person is nonfunctional(all life functions end at death)
- They believe that dead person still can think and feel
- The concepts of irreversibility, universality and cessation of functions usually develop at the time when children move from
pre operational to concrete operational thinking.

Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR

DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT ACROSS THE LIFE
SPAN : CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
► children can be helped to understand death if they are introduced to the concepts at an early age
and are encouraged to talk about it.
► If another child dies, teachers and parents need to try to allay the surviving children's anxieties.
- The way children show grief depends on cognitive and emotional development.
- children sometimes express grief through anger, acting out, or refusal to acknowledge a death .
► Parents and other adults can help children deal with bereavement by helping them understand that
death is final and inevitable, and they did not cause the death by their misbehavior or thoughts.
► Children need reassurance that they will continue to receive care from loving adults.
► Make a few changes as possible in a child's environment, relationships and daily activities to answer
questions simply and honestly
► To encourage the child to talk about the persons who died and about their feelings.

Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR

 DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT
ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN:
ADOLESCENCE
- Death is not something adolescents normally think much
about unless they are faced with it.
- In their urge to discover and express their identity, they may
be more concerned with how they live than with how long they
will live

ADULTHOOD
- Young adults who have finished their education and have
embarked on careers, marriage or parenthood are generally
eager to live the lives they have been preparing for
- Suddenly struck by a potentially fatal illness or injury, they
are likely to be extremely frustrated.
- Frustration may turn to rage, which can make them difficult
hospital patients.
Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR
DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT ACROSS THE
LIFE SPAN

►OLDER ADULTS
- They have mixed feelings about the prospect of
dying.
- Physical losses and other problems and losses
of old age may dimish their pleasure in living and
their will to live.
►According to Erikson, older adults who resolve
the final critical alternative of integrity versus
despair achieve acceptance both of what they
have done with their lives and of their impending
death.
Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR
 FINDING MEANING AND PURPOSE IN LIFE AND DEATH

► Reviewing of Life
- Life review can of course occur at any time
- It has special meaning in old age when it can foster ego
integrity, the final critical task of the life span
- End of journey approaches- people may look back over
their accomplishments and failure and ask themselves
what their lives have meant
- Awareness of mortality maybe an impetus for
reexamining values and seeing one's experiences and
actions in a new light
- Some people find the will to complete unfinished tasks
such as reconciling with estranged family members or
friends and thus to achieve a satisfying sense of closure.

Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR

FINDING MEANING AND PURPOSE IN LIFE AND DEATH

► Not all memories are equally conducive to mental health and

growth.
- Older people who use reminiscence for self-understanding show
the strongest ego integrity
- Most poorly adjusted are those who keep recalling negative
events and are obsessed with regret, hopelessness, and fear of
death; their ego integrity has given way to despair

- Life-review therapy can help focus the natural process of life

review and make it more conscious purposeful, and efficient
- Methods often used for uncovering memories in life-review
therapy include
* writing or taping one's autobiography
* constructing a family tree
* talking about scrapbooks
* photo albums
* old letters

Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR

 Development: A lifelong
Process
►Within a limited lifespan, no person can realise all
capabilities, gratify all desires, explore all interests,
or experience all the richness that life has to offer.
- The tension between possibilities for growth and
a finite time in which to do the growing define
human life
- By choosing which possibilities to pursue and by
continuing to follow them as far as possible, even
up to the very end, each person contributes to the
unfinished story of human development.
Dr. Zarine Immanuel, IIPR