The meaning of preparation for death among the Japanese elderly: Will-making for one’s own aging and end

Abstract

With the aging of society, there is a necessity and trend of preparation for our own death. In Japan, this trend is called SHU-KATSU. One of the popular tools with SHU-KATSU is called ENDING-NOTE, which is a booklet to write one’s nonleagal will about aging and end. The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning of this preparation among the elderly who are proactive to prepare, and the influence on themselves. We collected data by interviews with 8 people who are preparing by ENDING-NOTE. The results show that their motivation is consideration of other people so as ‘not to cause people trouble’, not to make unusual requests that will cause problems for others. The influence of preparation are to know and organize one’s actual condition, and releases them from the anxiety about giving somebody trouble, not about death itself. Talking with people about death is a difficult matter; therefore, preparation is based on and rather promoted from this premise. Decision-making, particularly in medical care and caregiving, could become difficult by the substance of their future image of aging and end. This result suggests the subject how to support them to make their future image.