Death And Dying Assignment Essay

Death and Dying: Related to the Story “Tuesdays with Morrie”
Dying is a natural part of the life process. Yet as humans we often fear the inevitable or somehow feel that it doesn’t apply to our race. In the United States, according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention 740.6 deaths per 100,000 population occurred in 2011 (Hoyert and Xu, 2012, para. 1).

ORDER  HERE A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

In the book Tuesdays with Morrie a professor dying of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), recognizes death as being a part of the life process and in his final days takes the opportunity to make his experience with dying a lesson to millions and to a particular pupil that he was once a mentor too, Mitch Albom. Morrie embraced the dying process as an opportunity to celebrate his life and his relationships with those close to him; and in the process aids Mitch in discovering his own meaning of life through spirituality, caring and the grieving process. Morrie Schwartz was a sociology professor at Brandeis University.Death And Dying Assignment Essay  Morrie was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or also known as Lou Gehrig ’s disease. ALS is a neurological disease that causes muscle weakness, leading to disability and eventually death (“Mayo Clinic: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis”, 2010). The disease affects 1 to 3 people per a population of 100,000 (“Mayo Clinic: Amyotrophic Lateral Scelrosis”, 2010). The cause of the disease is unknown and usually begins in one extremity and spreads throughout the body until it affects respiratory function (Gould and Dyer, 2011, p. 520). However, cognitive function is not affected by the disease. As the disease spreads to different muscles and limbs it deteriorates the muscle eventually causing paralysis. Loss of motor function throughout the body, difficulty speaking, difficulty breathing and difficulty swallowing are all signs and symptoms of ALS. Morrie mentions several times throughout the story of how he will die of suffocation once the disease reaches his lungs. The most common cause of death in patients with ALS according to the Mayo Clinic, is respiratory failure which usually occurs within 3 to 5 years of initial symptoms (“Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis”,2010). Morrie met his inevitable demise of the deadly disease within two years of his prognosis. Throughout Tuesdays with Morrie the progression of the disease is clearly marked. Morrie progresses from losing fine motor skills and needing aids to be mobile, to muscle atrophy and weakness that put him in a chair, to finally being completely bed bound and reliant on others.Death And Dying Assignment Essay
Caring for individuals with ALS usually requires a team as the disease progress. Common healthcare providers that make up this team consist of the following: respiratory therapist, speech pathologist, nutritionist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, psychologist, social workers, and nurses (Gould and Dyer, 2011, p. 520). Common treatments for patients with ALS are activities to maintain range of motion, muscle strength, and cardiovascular fitness (“Mayo Clinic: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis”, 2010). Aids such as walkers, wheelchairs and other devices are commonly used to aid in mobility and increase independence. Speech techniques and aids are commonly taught and used to help with communication as the disease progresses (Gould and Dyer, 2011, p. 520). Potential for injury is a main concern for patients diagnosed with ALS as well as a major nursing diagnosis. These patients become more dependent on others as the disease progresses and the potential for injury due to this increased dependence worsens.Death And Dying Assignment Essay
According to Kozier & Erb’s Fundamentals of Nursing, “Caring means that people, relationships and things matter” and “Caring practice involves connection, mutual recognition, and involvement between nurse and client” (Bermer and Snyder, 2012, p. 449). In the book Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom a previous student of Morries who is on a quest to find meaning in his life and deal with…

Death and dying is a very uncomfortable topic for most people who have grown up in the United States. It is something that often goes undiscussed and when it does come up, the discussion tends to be short. It is spoken about in hushed tones and tragic gestures. Most of the time, the topic of death is approached when discussing a recent tragic event, like a school shooting or terrorist attack. It becomes, “Did you hear about what happened over in Paris???” Everyone expresses their horror and gets the shivers, while fervently hoping it doesn’t happen to them next. Our culture views death as something far off that only happens to old people and a few unlucky individuals. This is because of our obsession with staying young: in our minds young people don’t die. Most of us push off thoughts of death and view it with a vague thought and idea, thinking it is something that will happen eventually, but not anytime soon. This vague idea of death is something that has come about in recent decades when people are living longer, healthier lives and death is not a common, everyday occurrence.
This vague, often pushed away, thought of death is very unhealthy. We need to prepare for and accept death as a part of life because every one of us will die someday. I believe we should spend every day of our lives prepared to die, not that we would be fearful or suicidal, but that we would trust that God has a specific lifespan planned for us and we need to accept that our live could end at any moment. People of all ages die every day: the young, the old, and the somewhere in between. It is naïve to think that anyone of us is exempt from death, because it is inevitable.Death And Dying Assignment Essay

Death and Grieving
Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014). In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist, published the Pioneering …show more content…
The fifth and final stage of the grieving process is acceptance. At this concluding frame of mind, the individual comes to terms with the death, and starts to move on, a normal comment in this stage is “I am at peace with the death” (Johnson, 2007). It is vital to remember that the one does not have to go through every stage in order, or to go through every stage at all. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model was never expected the five stages of grieving to be a stiff frame of reference, in her own words she say “They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives” (Smith, 2014).Death And Dying Assignment Essay
There is never one, or a correct way to grieve, however, countless people go through similar symptoms of mourning. Mourning has two types of symptoms: psychological and physical. The following psychological symptoms include: shock, sadness, guilt, anger, and fear (Smith, 2014).Death And Dying Assignment Essay