Chapter 8

Question 1

Chapter 8: Death, Dying and Bereavement

Introduction

Answer 1

• Death not only happens to old, but most obvious time for death

Question 2

Death awareness

Answer 2

• Average age for encountering death of non-stranger in USA is 8 years
• Death awareness understanding death not as abstract concept but becoming aware in practical and emotional termsusually in middle age when parents die
• the older one gets, the more aware of death and the less fear
• Gerotranscendence: shift in meta-perspective, from materialistic and pragmatic view of world to more cosmic and transcendent one can be substitute for religion

Question 3

Kübler-Ross’s five stages of dying model

Answer 3

.Denial
• 2.Anger
• 3.Bargaining
• 4.Depression
• 5.Acceptance
• critic: stage-like process, but not always stages in rl
• Happy death mentality: process can be controlled

Question 4

Palliative care

Answer 4

• QOL
• Death is prolonged
• Liverpool Care Pathway
• Symptom burden
• General practicioners
• Hard to study due to individual care
• Cross-cultural differences

Question 5

Death

Answer 5

• Clinical death
• Brain death
• Biological/somatic death
• Old less talked with about death, less sedative care

Question 6

Bereavement and cultural differences

Answer 6

• Common: feeling of disbelief, severe distress, symptoms of anxiety and depression, feelings of guilt
• Cultural differences in grieving
• Prolonged grief disorder (PGD)
• Bereavement overload

Question 7

Widowhood

Answer 7

• Less stressful if deceased was ill for long time
• Older are better primed to deathBUT contradictory findings
• Anticipatory grief
• The less briefing before death, the more severe grief afterwards
• Reliance on deceased
• Change of social network
• Women more depressedbut contradictory

Question 8

Suicide

Answer 8

•	Suicide rate increases with age
•	Suicide attempts more successful in oldshooting, drowning asphyxiation 
•	Increase in suicide rates only for old white men
•	Prediction of suicide rates:
Y=A+BX+CX2
Y=suicide rate
A,B,C=constants
X=SES

Question 9

Conclusions

Answer 9

• Inaccuracy, confounding variables
• Clear statement of individuals on how they want to be treated
• 1/3 not able to state one will at the end
• Will often differs from decisions of practisioners