death

• Terminal Drop or Terminal Decline

  Widely observed decline in cognitive abilities shortly before death
• Near-Death Experience


  Often involving a sense of being out of the body or sucked into a tunnel and visions of bright lights or mystical encounters
• Near-Death Experience


  • Linked to stimulation or damage of various brain areas, most notably in bilateral frontal and occipital areas
  • Generally experienced as positive as a result of the release of endorphins
• Five Stages of Death

  1. Denial

  2. Anger

  3. Bargain

  4. Depression

  5. Acceptance
• Grief


  Emotional response that generally follows closely on the heels of death
• Bereavement


  Response to the loss of some whom a person feels close
• Grief Work


  1. Shock and Disbelief

  2. Preoccupation with the memory of the dead person

  3. Resolution
• Recovery Pattern


  Mourner goes high to low distress
• Delayed Grief


  Moderate or elevated initial grief, and symptoms worsen over time
• Chronic Grief


  Distressed for a long time
• Resilience


  The mourner shows a low and gradually diminishing level of grief in response to the death of a loved one
• By age 4, children build a partial understanding of the biological nature of death
• Adjusting to loss is more difficult if a child had a troubled relationship with the person who died
• They do not understand death, but they understand loss
• Often, teens turn to peers for support
• Young adults will find their entire world collapsing at once when they knew they are dying instead of dealing with other issues
• Middle-Aged and Older adults are more prepared with death
• Terror Management Theory


  Human's unique understanding of death, in concern with self-preservation needs and capacity for fear, results in common emotional and psychological responses when mortality, or thoughts of death are made salient