Stages of Grief Preparing for death affects the patients’ behavior and emotions. While preparing for death, one will go through a series of stages before dying. These stages were identified by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist who worked with terminally ill patients. The stages of grief include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. (See Table 1.)
However, it has recently become a major issue in the twentieth century (Wells, K.R. & Frey, R., 2006, p. 994). There are two types of euthanasia that can be used. They are Voluntary Active Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide or PAS (Alters, S., 2005, p.13). Voluntary Active Euthanasia is a type of euthanasia when the physician administers the medication that will end the person’s life.
In the same way, the right to choose to die is implicit in the right to life. Those who are in the late stages of a terminal disease have a horrific future ahead of them: the gradual decline of their body, the failure of their organs and the need for artificial support. In some cases, the illness will slowly destroy their minds, the essence of themselves; even if this is not the case, the huge amounts of medication required to ‘control’ their pain will often leave them in a delirious and incapable state. Faced with this, it is surely more humane that those people be allowed to choose the manner of their own end, and die with dignity. Suicide is a lonely, desperate act, carried out in secrecy and often as a cry for help.
According to Kubler-Ross (1969) if individuals fail to adapt to the loss, they do not accept the reality of the loss. They fail to work through the pain of the loss and adjust to the life following to the loss so that they can move on. A person with abnormal grieving may also show signs of a health grieving accompanied by some unusual behaviuors.For example, a person who is grieving in a health manner may hear the voice of the dead loved one and the episodes are brief. While someone with abnormal grieving may continually hear the voice of the dead loved one. Abnormal grieving may last for anexercively period of time.
Also we must take into account that grief or loss does not always mean the death of somebody. It can relate to the loss of a job or partnership. Moving house or locating to a new area. (2) However in this essay I will be looking at grief and loss as bereavement. It seems to me that it is the fear of change that we do not like in our lives, and this starts from the day we are born.
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Denial: In this first step, the person experiencing grief refuses to accept the death they've experienced. It's an important coping mechanism in the initial first days after the death of a loved one. The denial of death allows you to cope with the immediate tasks at hand, such as informing other family members and friends and making funeral preparations. Denial can make you feel numb and, while these emotions are not healthy in the long-term, they help you move forward in the days following death.
For someone experiencing depression, there is usually more than one cause. The causes are categorised by the following: * Genetics – Though depression is usually developed due to life experience, there is strong evidence that genetically, some people may be more prone than others. * Illness – Certain illnesses, particularly Cancers, can cause depression. * Ageing brain – Depression is easily developed in the elderly, this could be due to the pre stages of dementia, history of low blood pressure, or just the general slowing of brain function. * Stress – Stress plays a major part in the illness of depression, this can be the stress of loving a loved one, pressure at work or from family.
Moreover, death could seem to have a less affect on children depending on their upbringing and nature of the situation. For instance, if a parent is dying of cancer, the child may be told that their parent is leaving soon, and so are given time to adjust to this reality, and learn to accept it. This is further supported by Saler et al. (1992) found that if a child is allowed to mourn the death of a parent, they suffer less from depression as opposed to children who are not allowed to mourn. Divorce on the other hand usually end on bad terms, so conflict could cause the child stress, as opposed to the process of being deprived of an attachment figure.
Acute Stress Reaction, Acute Stress Disorder, and Parents of Children with Cancer Liberty University Abstract Research has shown that traumatic stress can be caused by many different factors and how people react to stress can differ from person to person. Factors such as spirituality, religion, personality, temperament, a strong support system and how a person has handled trauma in the past play a role in how a person copes with stress. What may be a minor stressor to one person could cause a stress reaction or acute stress disorder in another (Yeager & Roberts, 2003). Acute stress disorder can be caused by the threat of or perceived threat of death to oneself or to another person (Patino-Fernandez, Pai, Alderfer, Hwang, Reilly, & Kazak, 2008). In this paper, I explore the signs and symptoms of acute stress disorder and acute stress reactions, coping skills, treatment of, and if having a child with cancer can lead to one of these disorders.
[1] This happens usually for compassionate reasons such as to reduce the pain of the ill ones. The two forms of euthanasia are voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Voluntary euthanasia refers to ending the life of an individual who is unable to make the right decisions for them. This form of euthanasia often takes place when an individual is either severely injured or incapable of expressing their desires. In contrast, involuntary euthanasia refers to ending one’s life that openly expresses their wish to die and requests other individuals to end their lives.