This essay discusses the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and what effect her theories have on today’s elderly.
IIntroduction
Death and dying are difficult subjects to even consider, let alone discuss. However, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s breakthrough book On Death and Dying identified specific stages in the death process, which in turn brought comfort to people struggling to understand the end of life.
This paper discusses her overall theory of death and dying, and how it relates to today’s elderly population.
IIThe Stages of Dying
According to Kubler-Ross, there are five stages in the death process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They’re easy to understand: denial is simply the refusal to believe that one is going to die. It’s a sort of temporary shock, often characterized by withdrawal from others, or others’ withdrawal from the dying person. The second stage is anger: “why me! I’m not finished, I’m not ready, this can’t be happening!” The third is bargaining: “Just let me live long enough to get the kids through college.” The fourth is depression, a deep sense of unhappiness at the loss of control and the inevitability of death. The last stage is acceptance, and Kubler-Ross reports that most people find peace at the very end. (“Death and Dying,” PG).
Not everyone goes through the stages in this order, and not everyone goes through each stage only once; sometimes a person who’s moved out of anger will suddenly find themselves angry again. Additionally, some people go through some of the stages simultaneously.
The Term Paper on Review of Elizabeth Kubler Ross’ Grief Cycle
For a long time doctors had had problems with persons with terminal illness. A dying person who could not be treated had always exposed the fallibility of the medical practitioners. This led to shunning of this lot as the dying and little to be done to save them. With this excuse doctors would move on more demanding cases that they believed could be cured. However, this was not the case with ...
IIIToday’s Elderly
As a society, we have a great deal of trouble talking about death. Modern medicine has made it possible to “compartmentalize” it, so that dying people are kept in hospitals or long-term care facilities, not at home. They are therefore conveniently out of the way when they die, and those who are left can try to ignore the fact that they too must eventually die. Until the 20th Century, people died at home, surrounded by loved ones, and the idea of death was simply that it was part of life. We have now removed it to an isolated setting, and in so doing, imbued it with a sense of power and fear that it had not had until modern times.
What Kubler-Ross’s work did was to bring death out of the back room and make it a topic that could be discussed. Perhaps her greatest contribution is the hospice movement; she is generally credited for bringing hospice care to the United States. Before she began her work, the concept was unknown, but now there are over 2,500 hospices in the country. (Chamberlain, 2000, PG).
Hospices are houses for the seriously ill and the dying. The term derives from the Middle Ages, when supportive care was provided to travelers, pilgrims, the sick and injured. The word itself means a “concept of care, not a specific place of care.” (“The Hospice Concept,” n.d., PG).
Although appropriate medical care is given in a hospice, its purpose is not to provide curative care, but palliative care. Patients are made comfortable, but no effort is made to prolong life by heroic means, as might be done in a hospital setting. “Hospice neither hastens nor postpones death.” (“The Hospice Concept,” n.d., PG).
Hospice care is open to anyone, regardless of age or type of illness, who has a life-threatening condition. People who choose to enter a hospice have decided they would prefer to die in a home-like setting, rather than a hospital. This is the main point: the elderly have a choice of where and how they will die. They are no longer forced into sterile units with machines surrounding them. They can choose to die at home, or in a hospice. The focus is finally shifting to the dying person, where it should have been all along.
The Essay on Life And Death Die Ing
What is this Book trying to teach us concerning the topic? This book is trying to teach us, the readers, that there are five main stages that help us cope with a death of someone close or somebody that is going to die. The first stage that is mentioned in the book is Denial. Ross tells of how a person just does not want to be with anyone but himself or herself because they don't know why God is ...
“To understand why Kubler-Ross had the impact she did, it’s important to note that when she first started working as a doctor in the United States in the 1960s, medical science seemed to be making crucial strides against disease and illness. Why accept death when you were winning the war? …
“The idea that dying was something to be fought at all costs was very strong in the culture of medicine,” Byock says. “The focus was so much on cure and prolonging life.”
”And yet, people still died. Death was still a universal experience that people needed to talk about. And in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Kubler-Ross was the lone voice to which they could turn.” (Chamberlain, 2000, PG).
In addition to gaining acceptance for the hospice concept, Kubler-Ross’s seminal book On Death and Dying, which I described earlier, had another effect. Hospice workers report that the stages mentioned are in fact what they see when they work with terminally ill patients. As noted, not everyone goes through the stages in order; some go through the stages several times; some go through more than one at the same time. But having the “roadmap” provided by Kubler-Ross has been invaluable to hospice workers: “We found our experience to parallel much of what she discovered.” (Giboney, 2001, PG).
Knowing what their patients were going through was helpful in knowing how to help them.
IVConclusion
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is a pioneer in an unsettling field. But her work has given rise to a new way of caring for the seriously ill, one which gives patients the choice of what type of care they receive, and where they receive it. They are no longer forced by custom and tradition to obey their doctor’s “orders,” but can take the liberating step of charting their own destiny in the last part of their lives.
VReferences
Chamberlain, C. (2000).
The Essay on A Rose For Emily part 1
A Rose for Emily The Faulkner's short story Rose for Emily rightfully belongs among other classical works of American literature of the beginning of twentieth century. This is largely due to the fact that author was able to introduce the readers to the original spirit of decaying South, while creating an emotional controversy, which makes his story so memorable. It is undoubtedly a love story, ...
Facing the Enemy. ABCNews.com. Retrieved April 1, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/kublerross_side.html
“Death and Dying.” (Undated.) Retrieved April 1, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.fcns.niu.edu/Miller/280/EPILOGUE/sld001.htm
Giboney, S.K. (2001).
A Visible Death. Minneapolis, MN: National Council on Family Relations. Retrieved April 1, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ncfr.org/pdf/FOCUS.PDF
“The Hospice Concept.” (Undated.) Hospice Net. Retrieved April 1, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.hospicenet.org/index.html
