How Has Modern Medicine Changed Our Perception of Death?

Narayani Bhardwaj
8 Min Read

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Death has always been associated with birth, whoever is born will die someday, so this is an ancient phenomenon that has existed since the beginning. However, it is an unpredictable phenomenon, people can die anytime, and sometimes, the reason could be a severe disease, an accident, or a heart attack.

With the advancements in technology, medical science has grown rapidly compared to olden times. It not only progressed in the medicinal field but also discovered and invented various ways to improve the life expectancy of people.

The perceptions of death significantly vary from person to person. While some people don’t take modern medicine as a life-expectancy extender, it certainly plays a significant role in aiding people to live as long as possible. However, there are many people with different and positive perceptions about death and they believe that modern medicine is like a life jacket to people that can help them afloat on the surface of life for a longer period than expected.

Modern medicine does not only include medicine-based treatments that people often misunderstand as it also involves modern treatments like palliative care, end-of-life care, thanatology, surgeries, and even modern vaccines. Anything that can help extend people’s life expectancy can be considered part of modern medicine. Each modern medicine has its consequential effects whose functionality may differ but the goal is the same, which is to help people live longer even in worse or dying conditions.

The Role of Modern Medicine in Life Expectancy

Since the olden times, modern medicine and its scope have evolved which has contributed a lot in increasing people’s life expectancy worldwide. During the 17th century, when it was extremely difficult for people to live longer than 44 years, which was like the maximum age limit as the average age limit was 35, the life expectancy rate drastically improved in the last two centuries.

What made these changes possible is the modern medicine that nowadays helps people to fight their minor to major diseases and improve their living possibilities.

The role of modern medicine in increased life expectancy can be seen better with the data that shows how the life expectancy of people insanely reached its almost-top since the 18th century in India and the credit goes to the advancements in modern medicine.

Nonetheless, even when it is visible that modern medicine is a crucial aspect of increased life expectancy, what can be the reason behind the slight drop in this rate? Modern medicine is supposed to increase life expectancy with the help of medical care for people who face health issues that could be associated with their mental, physical, and emotional health.

A huge part of life expectancy also depends on the rational human decisions that people nowadays make in their every moment. Modern medicine can’t cure genetic problems, however, it can support you with that. Moreover, it’s the people’s responsibility to take care of themselves by adopting healthy habits such as healthy eating, exercising, yoga, surrounding yourself with a cleaner environment, and jogging in fresh air. When people lack these healthy habits, the chances of diseases increase.

Palliative Care and Hospice

Providing treatments helps people treat diseases and helping them recover from them. However, during the treatments, patients have to suffer physical, mental, and emotional pain that can also sometimes worsen the physical health conditions of people, which can drop the rate of life expectancy of a certain person.

Palliative care and hospice can help people in relieving with their pain management, provide comfort and emotional support, and contribute to improving the quality of life. It aids people to hold on to the hope of recovering and provides them strength and positive insights to suffer the pain during the treatments.

Providing comfort to people during their harsh treatments is the main aim of hospice and palliative care to increase their life expectancy.

However, one significant aspect, which is often neglected is the fact that many people lack the finance to pay for these types of treatments as medical expenses are often high that backward people can’t afford easily. Due to these circumstances, everyone who needs these cares or treatments doesn’t receive them, hence, their life expectancy rate decreases.

Vaccines

Vaccines are another part of modern medicine, that protects people against various infectious diseases since their birth. One of the major importance of vaccines has been seen during the COVID-19. Since the 20th century, the mortality rate against infectious diseases like polio, smallpox, measles, and others has significantly reduced.

Medicinal Care

Not every patient requires palliative care or surgeries and some diseases can’t be prevented with vaccinations as well such as diabetes. Diabetes can become severe and life-threatening if not controlled on time.

Nowadays, many adults suffer from diabetes, but they are living their lives well and enjoying them because of the medicinal care, patients with diabetes are required to take the medicines regularly that help control their diabetes.

Even though diabetes can’t be cured, people nowadays can live for decades with diabetes with proper care and taking some precautions.

It wouldn’t be wrong if I say that more than 75% of people live on meds nowadays, whether it’s about a minor fever or an incurable disease like diabetes, people can survive better with the help of medicines and live a quality of life without worrying much that certainly improves human life expectancy.

Surgical Treatments

Surgeries and organ transplants are the things of the modern era, which can be considered as the evolution of medical care. In ancient times, some minor surgeries like taking the bullets out of the upper surface of the body as possible but what if someone got shot near the heart, there wasn’t much that people could do at that time, however, surgeries made overcoming this type of situation possible.

Not only get shots, but people get surgeries for diseases like cancer and undergo transplant treatments for issues like kidney dysfunction, which allow them to live with new organs for a longer time than expected without a transplant or surgery.

In short, modern medicine a huge contribution to improving the life expectancy of people in various prospects, and nowadays people live a lot longer than the average age of 33-35 years in olden times.

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Narayani Bhardwaj is a young and ambitious Web Content Writer with more than a two years of experience. She writes with her passion and desires of travelling the beautiful places in the world. The places merely not include only travelling, the articles she writes, are strictly professional with a touch of an individual's sincerity and feelings on what they are looking for. She has upskilled herself in the field of writing for her audience, and ensures the quality of the content which is relatable in executive as well as distinctive manner.

Education Masters of Computer Applications Certifications/Qualifications MCA in Computer Science BCA in Computer Science Programming Foundations with JavaScript, HTML and CSS by Coursera
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