chapter 17 Flashcards
What are the number of components that compose the death system in any culture?
- People
- Places or contexts
- Times (DATES)
- Objects
What does Kastenbaum also argue that the death system serves certain functions in a culture?
- Issuing warnings a predictions - weather, laboratory, etc
- preventing death - firefighters
- caring for the dying - hospice, doctors, nurses
- disposing of the dead - cremation, embalming,
- social consolidation after death - coping and adapting
- making sense of death
How can death be seen?
- punishment for one’s sins
- act of atonement
- judgement of a just god
The denial of death can take many forms including:
- Funeral industry to gloss over death and fashion lifelike qualities in the dead
- not using the word dead but saying “passing on” “exiting”
- Persistant search for fountain of youth
- rejection and isolation of the aged
- adoption of the concept of a good afterlife
- medical community prolonging life
more than ____% of Americans died in institutions and hospitals
80
What is brain death?
a neurological definition of death which states that a person is brain dead when all electrical activity of the brain has ceased for a specified period of time
The definition of brain death currently followed by most physicians includes the irreversible death of both the higher cortical functions and the lower brain stem functions
What part of the brain dies sooner than other?
The higher portions of the brain often die sooner than the lower portions.
Because the brain’s lower portions monitor heartbeat and respiration, individuals whose higher brain areas have died may continue breathing and have a heartbeat
What is advance care planning?
The process of patients thinking about and communicating their preferences about end-of-life care
What is an advance directive?
a living will - states such preferences as whether life-sustaining procedures should or should not be used to prolong the life of an individual when death is imminent
What is Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)?
a document that is more specific than an advanced directive.
POLST translates treatment preferences into medical orders such as those involving cardiopulmonary resuscitation, extent of treatment, and artificial nutrition via a tube
What is euthanasia? What are the two types?
(“easy death”) is the act of painlessly ending the lives of individuals who are suffering from an incurable disease or severe disability
Passive and Active euthansia
What is passive euthanasia?
The withholding of available treatments, such as life-sustaining devices, and allowing the person to die.
**Not having a ventilator
What is active euthanasia?
Death induced deliberately, as when a physician or a third party ends the patient’s life by administering a lethal dose of a drug.
What is assisted suicide?
Occurs when a physician supplies the information and/or the means of committing suicide (such as giving the patient a prescription for a lethal dose of sleeping pills) but requires the patient to self-administer the lethal medication and to determine when and where to do this
What’s the difference between assisted suicide and active euthanasia?
assisted suicide differs from active euthanasia, in which a physician causes the death of an individual through a direct action in response to a request by the person
The three most frequent themes described in articles on a good death involved:
- preference for dying process
- pain-free status
- emotional well-being
What is hospice
A program committed to making the end of life as free from pain, anxiety, and depression as possible. The goals of hospice contrast with those of a hospital, which are to cure disease and prolong life.
What is palliative care?
Emphasized in hospice care; involves reducing pain and suffering and helping individuals die with dignity.
What is sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)?
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), in which infants stop breathing (usually during the night) and die without apparent cause, is the leading cause of infant death in the United States, with the risk highest at 2 to 4 months of age
What age of people fear death the most?
middle-aged adults fear death more than children and older adults
What are some of the factors that place people at increased risk for suicide?
- serious physical illnesses
- mental disorders
- feelings of hopelessness
- social isolation
- failure in school and work
- loss of loved ones
- serious financial difficulties
- drug use
- prior suicide attempt
How does suicidal behavior of adolescents vary?
gender, genetic factors (The closer a person’s genetic relationship to someone who has committed suicide, the more likely that person is to also commit suicide), and ethnicity
What does distal mean?
early-life experiences
What plays a role in adolescent suicide?
- depressive episode
- child maltreatment
- sense of hopelessness
- low self-esteem
- high self-blame
- family and peer relationships
- socioemotional development
- struggling in school
- relationships
What to do when someone is likely to attempt suicide
- Ask direct and straightforward questions “are you thinking about hurting yourself?”
- Assess the seriousness of the suicidal intent by asking questions about feelings, relationships, who else the person has talked to, etc.
- Be a good listener and supportive
- Try to persuade the person to obtain professional help and assist him or her to get help
Females are ____ times more likely to attempt suicide than are males, but males are ____ times more likely than females to commit suicide
three
four
Elisabeth Kübler- Ross (1969) divided the behavior and thinking of dying persons into five stages:
- Denial and isolation: the dying person denies that she or he is going to die
- anger: the dying person’s denial gives way and anger, resent, rage, and envy
- bargaining: the dying person develops the hope that death can somehow be postponed.
- depression: the dying person perceives the certainty of her or his death
- acceptance: the dying person develops a sense of peach, acceptance, desire to be alone
What are the problems of Kubler-Ross’ approach?
- The existence of the five-stage sequence has not been demonstrated by either Kübler-Ross or independent research.
- The stage interpretation neglected the patients’ situations, including relation- ship support, specific effects of illness, family obligations, and institutional climate in which they were interviewed.
What are some of the advantages of this open awareness for the dying indivdiual?
- Dying individuals can close their lives in accord with their own ideas about proper dying
- They may be able to complete some plans and projects, can make arrangements for survivors, can participate in decisions about a funeral and burial
- have the opportunity to reminisce, to talk with others before death
- dying individuals have more understanding of what is happening within their bodies and what the medical staff is doing to them
What is grief?
The emotional numbness, disbelief, separation anxiety, despair, sadness, and loneliness that accompany the loss of someone we love.
What are important dimensions of grief?
- pining or yearning
- seperation anxiety
- despair and sadness
What is complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder?
Grief that involves enduring despair and remains unresolved over an extended period of time.
What is disenfranchised grief?
Grief involving a deceased person that is a socially ambiguous loss that can’t be openly mourned or supported.
What is the dual-process model?
A model of coping with bereavement that emphasizes oscillation between loss-oriented stressors and restoration-oriented stressors.
What are the two dimensions of the dual-process model?
- loss-oriented stressors - focus on the deceased individual and can include grief work and both positive and negative reappraisal of the loss.
- restoration-oriented stressors - involve the secondary stressors that emerge as indirect outcomes of bereavement. They can include a changing identity (such as from “wife” to “widow”) and mastering skills (such as dealing with finances).
What does aninut mean?
period between death and burial
