Birth to Death

The experience of death -- another natural, normal process -- has also been significantly altered by technology.  Are people living longer?  Certainly.  Are drugs helping to alleviate pain?  Absolutely.  But does dying in a hospital bed connected to life-saving devices create a dignified, comfortable death?  Not necessarily. Many attribute this change to advances in life-extending drugs, while others contend that the process of funding medical care has deteriorated the human end-of-life experience.

According to a study published by the American Medical Association, "Most likely, these ... are the result of a complex set of interactions that include our death-denying culture and existing financial incentives that reinforce invasive treatment approaches to medical care."

Like the birth experience, the experience of death in this country is becoming increasingly -- and many believe unnecessarily -- unpleasant.  A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association investigated the U.S. experience of dying, and found that family members had a higher rate of concern with the quality of end-of-life care for persons whose last place of care was a nursing home or hospital.

The radical demographic shift set to occur as the baby boomer generation reaches old age, combined with increasing medical expenses and decreased government funding, may be the main catalyst for change in end-of-life care.  If the surge in popularity of natural births in this country is any indicator of how we feel about invasive medical treatments and technology, the paradigm shift may have just begun.