Death Anxiety refers to the fear and apprehension on one’s own death. It is the neurotic fear of loss of the self which in intense state parallels produces feelings of helplessness and depression. Man’s awareness of his own death produces anxiety that can only be dealt with by recognizing one’s individuality. Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Elderly people often have limited regenerative abilities and are more susceptible to disease, syndromes, injuries and sickness than younger adults. As death is the final stage of the life cycle, more research reports are being presented on nature of death and dying. Research on exactly when death occurs, how the dying should be treated, and how their families might better cope will continue for many years. Psychological problems are predictive of higher levels of death anxiety in elderly people. A suggestive but equivocal relationship was found for the predictor institutionalization. Furthermore, the review statistically demonstrated the importance of using sound methods for measuring death anxiety and sampling from the elderly population. It has been said that we may learn looking backward - we live looking forward. A person’s thinking and behavior may be influenced more than we recognize by his views, hopes and fears concerning the nature and meaning of death. Caucasian participants displayed higher Fear of the Dying Process than did older African American participants. Lastly, older African American participants reported higher levels of death anxiety on 3 of the subscales of the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale (Fear of the Unknown, Fear of Conscious Death, and Fear for the Body after Death) when compared with older Caucasian participants and also tended to accord less social value to the elderly. They include approaches such as the self-concept discrepancy theory or theories of intellectual development in middle and old age. The discussion identifies several challenges faced by researchers in this field: operationalization of vague theoretical concepts, creative application of theories, integration of several approaches, and use of appropriate methods such as longitudinal or experimental designs.
