Elderly Death Attitudes

The information contained in this article talks about the attitudes towards elderly death and how gender influences this. Several studies and scholars have sidetracked gender as a major issue concerning gerontology, placing more focus on the causes and the trajectory of death. Statistics have it that senior men have a higher prevalence to commit suicide than their female counterparts do.

This book clarifies the stratified and diverse the gender paradox involved in elderly death and suicide with a primary focus on how they interpret and cope with impending death; their different lifestyles and dealing with grief. The book gives a chronology of how these attitudes, experiences, and interpretation of death have changed over time among the genders.

According to this research, children born during the time of our ancestors died from the plague, T.B, fever and other diseases that are now preventable. People counted themselves lucky to live through these diseases. These days, accidents, lifestyle diseases, and suicide are taking lives.

It is important to note the misconceptions and attitudes of death then and now. Children back then were afraid of speaking about death because the adults told them that it was knowledge only for the elders and God. It was, therefore, mystery, and there were many unresolved questions that they carried burdensomely into adulthood. Now, parents tell their children that the deceased are resting and other comforting alternatives, rather than nothing.

The results of this section of the study show that in the U.S. cancer and heart failure are the primary causes of mortality. 1178 per 100,000 people between the age group 65-74 years by the year 1993 died from heart disease. On the other hand, 1 in every 15 men and 1 in every 26 women in the same age group develops cancer, which leads to death. Technology and research have resulted in a significant extension of the human

There is a general attitude of acceptance and readiness towards the death topic these days, thanks to studies such as gerontology and geriatrics, which equips the society with information that aids in taking care and understanding elderly needs.

The study sheds light on the controversy around the suicide, euthanasia and "assisted death issue" that has had the government and the federal courts playing a game of tag. This controversy is a disputable area that has proved difficult in the legal realm, where no particular law restricts assisted death, and no specific law allows for it. On the one hand, there is the law that limits the provision of life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients; and on the other, no law restricts "assisting death."

There is a federal legislation on this issue that might be a loophole in the medicine world, tagged the Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA). This law requires the physician to provide information to the patient that they have the right to accept or decline treatment in case of a critical situation. Different schools of thought could label this as murder/suicide/assisted death. This issue is alarming and open to new legislation and debate for the future