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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

[Funeral rites in memory of the elderly].

This a phenomenologial study rites in the memory of elderly people, originated from the discomfort lived by the authors in their professional life dealing with death and dying. Verbal information from elderly people was collected with the objective of recovery and decoding mortuary rites. Nine themes originated from these informations: feelings and meanings in relation to death, the time of death, the annunciation death, the body's preparations, the watcher, the funeral procession, the grave, the return to home, the remembered death. The results gave the authors opportunity to understand better the attitudes of health professionals in caring for patients and their families in this existential experience of to-be-for-death. The death rationalized by scientific knowledge and nonpersonal technological care hides new rites, transmuted by new representations which the society built.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1998

Consuming the dead: a Kleinian perspective on death rituals cross-culturally.

The author argues that Melanie Klein's theories of mourning shed light on certain funerary practices encountered widely in ethnographic literature, namely 'second burial'. Pointing out that the death of a loved person is experienced in fantasy as the destruction of the internalised mother imago, the author shows how various Kleinian processes involved in infantile fears of maternal loss--such as persecutory anxiety, guilt, depression, and attempts at reparation--are clearly expressed in rituals of mourning cross-culturally. The argument is illustrated with two extensive case studies, Bali (Indonesia) and the Mekeo of coastal Papua New Guinea. A number of other cultures are considered briefly to indicate the relevance of Kleinian theory to the symbolism of death rituals more broadly, including the role played by sorcery and witchcraft beliefs, fears of malevolent ghosts, repeated re-burial, mortuary gift exchange, cremation, mortuary cannibalism, and the denial of death in modern western funeral rites.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed1999

Looking into the demography of an iron age population in the western Mediterranean. I. Mortality.

In this paper, we attempt to reconstruct the mortality pattern of the population buried in S'Illot des Porros (Majorca), an Iron Age necropolis in the western Mediterranean, by means of paleodemographic analysis. The skeletal sample consists of 285 individuals, 93 subadults (under 20 years old) and 192 adults. The aim of this study is twofold: first, to identify and to evaluate the structural anomalies of the skeletal sample, and second, to obtain a possible and realistic description of the biological dynamics of this population, with special reference to its mortality pattern. The study uses current demographic methodology and several demographic models (for comparison). An abridged life table was built to estimate the mortality parameters. To evaluate the likelihood of the estimated data, an indirect analysis, which consisted of a comparison of our results with different population models (Weiss [1973] American Antiquity 38; Coale and Demeny [1996] Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Ledermann [1969] Nouvelles tables-types de mortalité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France), was carried out. An important bias was identified in the case of children, mostly affecting infants but also children between the ages of 1 and 5. This was interpreted as a census error due to taphonomic reasons and to an excluding differential funeral rite. A life expectancy at birth of approximately 28 years was estimated from the observed data. When this bias was removed, the estimated life expectancy at birth dropped to 23 years. The use of the Brass logit system allowed us to sketch a possible mortality profile for this population: low life expectancy, high infant mortality and hard life conditions, which were the cause of the low levels of survivorship in old ages. Am J Phys Anthropol 110:285-301, 1999.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Between horror and hope: gladiator's blood as a cure for epileptics in ancient medicine.

Between the first and the sixth century a single theological and several medical authors reported on the consumption of gladiator's blood or liver to cure epileptics. The origins of the sacred or apoplectic properties of blood of a slain gladiator, likely lie in Etruscan funeral rites. Although the influence of this religious background faded during the Roman Republic, the magical use of gladiators' blood continued for centuries. After the prohibition of gladiatorial combat in about 400 AD, an executed individual (particularly had he been beheaded) became the "legitimate" successor to the gladiator. Occasional indications in early modern textbooks on medicine as well as reports in the popular literature of the 19th and early 20th century document the existence of this ancient magical practice until modern times. Spontaneous recovery of some forms of epilepsy may be responsible for the illusion of therapeutic effectiveness and for the confirming statements by physicians who have commented on this cure.

Blood↗
PubMed1993

Brain death in the pediatric patient: historical, sociological, medical, religious, cultural, legal, and ethical considerations.

OBJECTIVE: To detail the origins of the definition of death, the development of the criterion of whole brain death as fulfilling the definition of death, and the tests used to fulfill that criterion. DATA SOURCES: A review of the literature was performed. No Institutional Review Board approval was necessary. DATA EXTRACTION: In 1959, patients were described as being in "coma dépassé" or beyond coma. In 1967, the first successful heart transplantation took place, with the organ coming from a brain-dead, beating-heart donor. However, anxiety over the definitions of death did not begin with the modern, technological era, and death itself has never been definable in objective terms. It has always been a subjective and value-based construct. During ancient times, most people agreed that death occurred when a person's heartbeat and breathing stopped. For the Greeks, the heart was the center of life; for the ancient Hebrews and Christians, the breath was the center of life. In the 12th century, Maimonides pointed toward the head, and the loss thereof, as the reason for lack of central guidance of the soul. Physicians neither diagnosed nor certified death. During the Enlightenment, the necessity of heartbeat, breath, and consciousness for the definition of life was questioned, leading to questioning regarding the definition of death. Tests to fulfill the criteria of death, and tests to determine the absence of integration between functions of respiration, circulation, and neurology were introduced. Sensorimotor potential was becoming recognized as defining life, rather than heartbeat and respiration. As new tests were devised to fulfill criteria of death, the physician developed a professional monopoly on meeting the criteria of brain death. In the modern era, the boundary between life and death has been blurred, but the intensive care unit straddles this boundary. We may have situations where the patient is alive but in a coma, without functioning heart, lungs, kidneys, or gastrointestinal tract, with a transplanted liver, a reversed coagulation system, a blocked immune system, and a paralyzed musculoskeletal system. DATA SYNTHESIS: A human being is a man, woman, or child who is a composite of two intricately related but conceptually distinguishable components: the biological entity and the person. Therefore, human beings can suffer more than one death: a biological death and decay, and another death. Biological death is a cessation of processes of biological synthesis and replication, and is an irreversible loss of integration of the biological units. The reasons for having criteria for death are to diagnose death and pronounce a person dead. Society can then begin to engage in grief, religious rites, funerals, and burials, and accept biological death. Wills can be read, property distributed, insurance claimed, individuals can remarry, succession can take place, and legal proceedings can begin. Also, organ donation can take place, which entails difficult ethical decisions. The Harvard criteria of 1968 were devised to set forth brain-death criteria with whole brain death in mind. Currently, there are several controversies regarding these criteria: a) whether they apply to infants and children; b) whether ancillary tests are necessary; c) what the intervals of observation and testing are; and d) are there exceptions to the whole brain death criteria. Concerning the use of the adult criteria for infants and children, most researchers now agree that the adult criteria apply to infants and children who are full term and > 7 days of age. Concerning ancillary tests, there has been, in our machine- and technology-oriented profession, a great deal of emphasis on the different tests and their ability to fulfill the criteria of whole brain death. However, clinical examination and the apnea test are usually sufficient to fulfill the criteria. Ancillary tests may be desired in some cases, and a variety of these tests is available. (ABSTRACT TR

Adult↗
PubMed1982

The relative impacts of vertical and integrated FP/MCH programs in rural Nepal.

The objectives of this analysis were to assess the probable impacts of vertical and integrated FP/MCH programs on family planning (knowledge, use, and intentions to use), family size preferences, fertility, and mortality (child and infant). The following discussion summarizes and draws conclusions regarding the results of this investigation. The vertical program showed a greater impact on knowledge of family planning than the integrated program. Increases in knowledge between 1975 and 1978 while controlling for social and demographic variables were greater in the vertical than the integrated areas. Multiple classification analysis at both household and village levels showed that the vertical program was a better predictor of knowledge and changes in knowledge than the integrated program. In addition, the vertical program showed consistently higher proportions of women with awareness of family planning among those segments of the population that could have the greatest impact on fertility reduction in the future--namely, the younger women who are either childless or just beginning their childbearing and those with husbands who have little or no education. Neither the vertical nor the integrated FP/MCH program showed an impact on current use or ever use of family planning. The very low levels and changes in levels of these factors between the programs showed almost no difference throughout the selected demographic and socioeconomic groups. In both program areas the proportions of ever use and current use increased substantially with the number of living sons, exceeding 14 percent and 10 percent, respectively, among women with three or more sons. There were virtually no family planning users or ever users among women with no sons. This appears to indicate that "son preference" (documented in the Nepal Fertility Survey) is an important factor affecting the incidence of family planning practice and may be a formidable obstacle to a substantial reduction in fertility. Family limitation generally may not be taken seriously until a couple has produced the desired number of sons. Hence, until the value of sons (perhaps as sources of labor, financial support and security in old age, and as performers of funeral rites for fathers) can be altered it is unlikely that a reduction in fertility beyond certain levels could occur. The vertical program showed a slightly greater impact on future intentions to use family planning than the integrated program.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

[Ebola virus: what the practitioner needs to know].

The Ebola virus is an RNA virus of Filoviridae family. The earliest documented fatal epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic occurred in 1976. There are four genetically different subtypes of Ebola virus. The virus remains in the blood for several weeks, can maintain its infectivity for several weeks at 20 degrees C outside the body, and survives for several weeks in corpses. Isolation of Ebola virus requires level 4 laboratory security conditions. Specimens are obtained by culturing mammal cells. Identification is achieved using reference serums. Serologic diagnosis is made using mainly ELISA technique for immunocapture of IgM or EBO Ag. The natural reservoir for Ebola virus is unknown. One possibility is that each isolated strain has a different reservoir. In recorded outbreaks, the index case has often had a history of contact with non-human primates. However since these animals are also highly sensitive to the virus, they cannot be considered as reservoirs but only as intermediate hosts. Transmission requires close contact such as occurs in association with health care, local customs, or funeral rites. In humans, infection causes hemorrhagic fever that progresses to diarrhea within 5 to 10 days. Recovery is observed in only 25% of cases. During outbreaks containment depends on implementation of simple precautions including isolation of suspected cases, appropriate protective clothing, disinfection with hypochlorite solutions, and proper waste disposal.

Africa↗
PubMed2005

Mediator deathwork.

The most discussed and analyzed form of deathwork is the dyadic therapist--client relationship, but this far from exhausts the various types of professional work involving the dead. Mediator deathwork is where the professional gleans or constructs information about the dead, edits and polishes it, and publicly presents the edited version in a public rite; this entails a triadic flow of information: the dead--the mediator--public rite. Examples include pathologists, coroners, American funeral directors, funeral celebrants, obituary writers, spiritualist mediums, and museum curators. Other types include barrier deathwork (in which the professional insulates the living from the dead--the dead | the living--as in British funeral directing), and intercessory deathwork in which priests send prayers the other way, from the living to, or on behalf of, the dead: mourner--priest--the dead. The article focuses on mediator deathwork because, though it is the most widespread form of deathwork, it is the least discussed and analyzed.

Autopsy↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Stillbirth rites.

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Bereavement↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Rites of passage.

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Decision Making↗
PubMed2000

[The head nurse faced with nurses' rites of passages].

The caregivers, faced with a death, have repetitive and meaningless attitudes. The concept of rite, developed by Pierre CAZE-NEUVE, reveals that a rite can be characterized by three elements: stereotyped, repetitive and meaningless. The passage rite is made up of three steps: separation, margin and aggregation. The passage rites are defence mechanisms installed by the caregivers to fight against an element which they do not master, the death of a patient. The role of the head nurse can come in three forms: a protection role in order to give caregivers good working conditions, an attention faced with the limits of the rite as well as a vigilance faced with negative rites.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Elderly-animal postmortem attachment.

Attachment can be strong between people and their pets. The present study was conducted to determine: (1) specific variables associated with the final rite and disposition of the deceased pet, and (2) those criteria associated with emotional and social factors pertaining to elderly-animal postmortem attachment. Results suggested four most frequently stated variables of final rite and disposition, and eight emotional and social factors of elderly-animal postmortem attachment.

Aged↗