抄録
With remarkable developments in palliative care, we can surely control the physical pain of patients with serious disease. However, it may be more painful for patients to live with the fear of death as they wait for death to finally occur. The sense of life harbored in Japanese is quite different from that of western countries where life is based on modern science. Many Japanese patients with incurable diseases prefer not to undergo aggressive treatments which can only delay the time of death. Many Japanese are averse to the organ transplans from brain dead donors, because they believe that body is tightly associated with the soul and can hardly recognize that brain death is real death. Patients in the terminal state develop not only an independent mind which seelks maturity as a human being, but also a dependent mind which fears isolation from other people. They usually hesitate to request anything in order not to trouble others, while at the same time, they also want others to comply with all their request. Japanese people don't like to complain about the fear of death, because they have their own culture in which one's death becomes honorable if he/she accepts it as a natural process. Therefore, Japanese patients tend to suppress their fear of death and some manifest physical symptoms as a result. Most Japanese patients don't intend to express theemselves after they perceive that death is coming. They would like to continue their usual way of living until death, and wish to die without suffering during their sleep.
