Historical and cultural approaches to death and dying

Beliefs and practices relating to death have changed over time. Where civilisations and cultures once put death at the centre of celebration, attitudes to dying are now very different.

The introduction of public health interventions, advances in health care, and improvements in living and working conditions, have resulted in significant increases in life expectancy. This means that death is now a less familiar part of our everyday lives, often happening in clinical settings such as hospitals, hospices, and care home facilities. Families and communities now have a more limited supporting role in the dying process, leaving some people ill-equipped to deal with death when it does touch their lives.

Many people expect medicine to prolong life, meaning death can be seen more as a 'failure of medicine', rather than a 'normal' and inevitable part of life. This reliance on medicine may also see people over-treated in hospital. On the other hand, many people remain untreated, dying of preventable conditions and without access to basic pain relief.

The quality of experience of death is subjective, but 'dying well' should generally reflect the individual's culture, beliefs and personal wishes. Most people would prefer to die at home, although this is not always practically possible, and can place a burden of care on loved ones. The concept of 'home' is more than a physical address, and a home-like environment can be created in other settings through connections with loved ones and meaningful objects.