BY DAY 7
Respond by Day 7 to at least two colleagues in one or more of the following ways:
· Provide additional resources or media on aging, death, and dying.
· Compare your colleague’s perceptions, biases, and judgments to your own.
· Offer alternative viewpoints and insights.
· Ask for clarification.
Continue the Discussion through Day 7.
TIFFANY
My own ideas about aging, dying, and death before the video:
Aging: 1. We all age as we get older if we are lucky enough to get older. It is a part of life.
2. I think you become more “invisible” as you age and get older as in you don’t get noticed or spoken to as much.
3.When I see older people, I sometimes wonder if I will be able to live independently at an old age and walk and drive unassisted or do things like swim or nature hikes. I wonder a lot about quality of life when I see elderly people or people that are obviously aging and entering another phase of life.
Dying: 1. I believe if you are suffering from a terminal illness or an illness that significantly alters your quality of life- I believe in medically assisted death. I believe it should be a right and a choice that people are able to make for themselves before they lose the ability to do so.
2. Personally, I do not want to be on life support or in a vegetative state.
3. Put me in the VA end of life care program. I am ok with dying there unless I just suddenly die at home or in the hospital. If the act of dying is prolonged due to a terminal illness- just put me in the VA end of life care and I will be just fine with that option.
Death: 1. None of us know when it is our exact moment and so it is a personal choice how you choose to embrace or deal with death.
2. Everyone should discuss death with their loved ones as far as your personal choices regarding treatment, intervention, end of life care, organ donation, and so on. I don’t think it is fair to leave those decisions to someone else when you can make them well in advance.
3. I mainly think about death regarding my children. My main thought is, “It would be really sad to be gone and my children need me or want to ask a question or need me for any reason or just wanted to talk.”. That is what I think of when I think of death.
“Engage with Grace” video reaction and biases:
Reaction– My reaction to the video was one of sadness and the reminder of the one thing that bothers me most about death- the finality of it for your children. I facetime, talk, text, and see my two children so much I would think that if any one of us were no longer here it would cause such a gaping hole in our lives. During the video, I wondered how conscious the mother was and if she was able to hear her loved ones. I wondered if she wanted to get home and to be at home. Many years ago, I fainted and was in the ER and could hear everything my family was saying but couldn’t move nor open my eyes. I could hear each of them perfectly and the doctors and nurses but was unable to respond. While watching “engage with Grace” as she told the story of Za, she said Za “first only spoke in Italian and then became unable to speak or communicate” (Vimeo, 2008). This made me really wish I could know if her sister-in-law could maybe hear her family and her 2-year-old daughter and if that would be any consolation.
Biases: Before watching the video, I wrote down a page of thoughts about aging, dying, and death as we were prompted to do. I felt completely resolved in those thoughts and everything I’d written down. Now, here again for the second time in Week 1 of this class, I find myself challenged and biases revealed. One immediate bias that came to mind after watching the video was, “What if you aren’t able to choose how you embrace death or in any of your end-of-life treatment?”. I made the incorrect assumption that everyone (barring a tragic accident or crime) just has the time and decisions to have everything about dying and death all figured out and all spelled out legally by living will and/or advance directive. The woman in this story was only 32, a young mother and wife, and a thriving pharmacist who probably in no way expected life to end up like this. Another bias was that “everyone should prepare for death”. Well, as in the video, you may not have time or the capacity to prepare and not everyone has family to advocate on their behalf. I had the bias that dying and death are clean cut conversations to be had well in advance of dying and this video proved otherwise. Also, maybe some people don’t think about death until a certain age and maybe in some families and culture, it could be unacceptable to speak about death openly. Religious reasons could also impact one’s thoughts, discussions, and plans regarding medical treatment, dying, and death. Another issue that was in direct conflict of how I feel for myself was when her brother decided to bring her home. That was a moving moment and especially the fact that if just for a while, she woke up and was able to see her baby one more time. I have a view that if I have a terminal illness, place me in a facility so as not to burden and strain the lives of my children. I don’t have much family though. I have an aging mother (who, unlike me, does NOT want to talk about death or make any plans for herself nor does she want to go into a nursing home or facility), I have an adult brother who also will not discuss death because he said he is “too young to talk about it”, I have an adult child, and a ten-year-old child. That’s it. So, I think for people with lots of loved ones and maybe people depending on them or family support- the discussions and plans about dying and death could be different.
References
Health 2.0 (Producer). (2008). Links to an external site.. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/2339539#at=0
MARY
MAIN POST — MARY BROWN
Perceptions of aging, death and dying vary by individuals, communities, and ethnic and cultural groups, and all three are impacted in many ways by, for example, knowledge, perceptions, economic status and inequality in policies and systems (Boswell, 2012; Kunkel & Settersten, 2022). Boswell (2012), also identified that ageism can occur because individuals (whether in healthcare or not) have a lack of knowledge regarding aging, producing behaviors that are discriminatory to the aging adult’s care as well.
Preconceived Ideas About Aging, Death and Dying
My preconceived ideas about aging, death and dying have changed over the years. Currently because of my field of practice (Oncology Social Work), I see the impact of poor self-care and lack of support (whether from family or community resources) in the death and dying phases of life. I also believe that aging can be construed as bad because of society’s perceptions of aging and that all older adults will require assistance. I too have personal experience with this. When I am with my aging aunts and uncles, I feel that I must help them more, but they are adamant on doing things themselves. I always thought this was a respect issue, however, working more and more with patients with cancer who lose their independence all the time, has allowed me the opportunity to look more deeply at the desires of the person who is dying (and who is aging), and has a chronic disease differently. This has caused me to work more closely with caregivers to allow the patient to do what they can and encourage the patient to allow others to help if they cannot do something. I also feel that individuals have the right to choose how they die; e.g., if they do or do not want to be resuscitated or if they want to be placed on a ventilator. I also believe that the person has to work through the grief stage to even accept that they are dying and at times do not accept it until the final days, causing anxiety, depression and increased stress for themselves and caregivers. However, I do believe that each person works through the aging, death and dying stages of life differently and will have their own unique experience and wishes and they should be upheld by their caregivers and medical teams if at all possible.
Reaction to the Video
I agree that we as individuals wait too long to have conversations about death and our wishes regarding how we want to pass (Health 2.0, 2008). Having conversations with families and/or Power of Attorney is important so that there are no misunderstandings and/or misconceptions on the part of the family member who may have to make those types of decisions for the patient. Watching the video therefore confirms my perceptions of the patient voicing their desires early on in care in the event they start to decline. Patient choices impact more than themselves as well and this video challenged me even more to take the caregiver’s needs into account as well when helping the patient transition from a hospital to home setting when passing.
References
Boswell, S. S. (2012). Predicting trainee ageism using knowledge, anxiety, compassion, and contact with older adults. Educational Gerontology, 38(11),
733–741.
Health 2.0 (Producer). (2008). Engage with Grace [Video file]. https://vimeo.com/2339539#at=0
Kunkel, S., & Settersten, R. (2022). Aging, society, and the life course. Springer.
