Aging and dying: medical and ethical considerations

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"The idea of writing a chapter on agingseems particularly appropriate. I’m at theright age to address this topic. As I did thepreparatory reading and research, I had anunusual experience. For the first time in mylife, I felt like an expert. I could judge whatpeople were saying about aging by my ownexperience. Besides facing aging myself, Iwork mainly with rural hospitals and nursinghomes and hospice organizations where mostof the patients are elderly. Both in my personallife and in my work, I am surroundedby the realities of aging and dying.In a recent book entitled Gray Dawn (1)on the economics and politics of aging, theauthor, Peter Peterson used a grippingmetaphor to describe the challenge of anincreasing aging population. Global aging,he said, is like a massive iceberg which verywell could destroy even the most powerfuleconomic vessels in the world. The agingpopulation worldwide, according to thisauthor, threatens human survival and is themost important challenge we face in the 21stcentury. His iceberg metaphor highlights thedanger of global aging and the fact the allhuman beings are exposed to this danger."