Hospice And Attitudes Toward Death - Essay Example

Running Head: Hospice & Attitudes toward Death Hospice & Attitudes toward Death [Institute’s Hospice & Attitudes toward Death Death has been one of the most intriguing and fascinating discourses of all time. Since antiquity, thinkers and scholars have busied themselves in unveiling the mysterious oncoming of death, the process of dying, the pre and post death premonitions and so forth. More interesting; however, is the anthropological perspective of death that is how perception and observation differs in various cultures and how this perception has radically changed over the period.

This paper will attempt to discover this very shift along with the role hospice care has played in this shift of view and its relevance to the whole proposition. In recent decades, particularly in the last century, there has been a great shift in lifestyles of people all over the world. The religious-centered lifestyles have now moved towards being more materialistic and social. This has affected the way people dress, eat, interact with others, perceive, and prepare them for what is not in their control (Corr et al.

, 304, 2008). Thus, unlike older times when people relied more on religious ceremonies and rituals to lessen the bereavement and pain before death, nowadays, people fall back on hospice care services and more techniques that are modern. One way this affects the process is through reducing the time span of this bereavement. With modern day facilities and parallel services available under one roof at hospice, time duration of the pain and grief before dying and shortened considerably. With the availability of priests, psychologists, drug experts, food experts and plain entertainers to read and talk to patients, it has become comparatively easier for patients as well as their families to cope with the loss and the accompanying gloom (Gittings, 273, 2000).

However, the old patterns are not inefficient. Despite of the fact that religious ceremonies conducted to ease the bereavement of the dying and their family took longer period time to perform its role, nonetheless, it did perform an important sociological function. As opposed to modern concept of hospices where patients are left alone to services and families are just restricted to pay short visits, the religious ceremonies brought together the whole family and community who prayed and performed rituals together for the ease of the patient.

By this communal service, not only did the patient benefitted from the powers emitted from the services but also had an opportunity to realize the love and affection bestowed upon him by his family, friends, and neighbors. Even more interesting is the notion that this way of relieving bereavement helped the community and those around the patient more effectively to deal with their loss than present day hospices. People, through these long, gradual, and sacred practices found courage to let go of the dying and to bid him farewell as optimistically as possible which lessened their hardships to cope with the pain later on after the patient is gone.

This is where the modern day phenomenon of hospices lack: even though the last days of patients are made comparatively much easier, the family has little to gain than to be assured that their loved one is taken care of and is made ready to leave the world with content (Forman, 222, 2003) Concisely, the attitude towards death and bereavement have changed drastically due to the trend of hospice care in western cultures owing to its 360-degree approach in patient’s well-being but the same lacks the consideration for those related to the patients.

Whereas, in eastern culture, similar to old times, conventional religious ceremonies help families to cope better at the same time lacking the ease and attention to the patient that hospice care delivers. References Corr, C. A., Nabe, C., Corr. D. M. (2008) Death and Dying, Life and Living. Cengage Learning. Forman, W. B. (2003). Hospice and palliative care: concepts and practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Gittings, C. (2000). Death in England: an illustrated history. Manchester University Press.