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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| The naturalness of dying | | Author(s) | Jack D McCue |
| Journal title | JAMA, (Journal of the American Medical Association), vol 273, no 13, 5 April 1995 |
| Pages | pp 1039-1043 |
| Keywords | Dying ; Octogenarians ; Case studies. |
| Annotation | Evidence that dying occurs as a natural, final event in the wholeness of human life is culturally, artistically, and scientifically persuasive. Very old patients eventually undergo a process of functional declines, progressive apathy, and loss of willingness to eat and drink that culminates in death, even in the absence of acute illness or severe chronic disease. This article outlines examples of probable natural death in three patients aged over eighty, whose deaths were not explainable by acute or chronic disease. They suffered functional and cognitive declines, and appear to have died naturally of old age. Doctors and other caregivers should not over-treat or over-test. They need to recognise that declines and dying in the very old are not a sign of failure of medical diagnosis or treatment, but part of a natural process with both positive and negative dimensions. On the simplest human level, for many very old people, death is a desirable relief from suffering. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010105009 A |
| Classmark | CX: BBM: 69P * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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