“Living-with-dying”: the elderly’s language of terminal illness

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to examine the way in which elderly people, men and women, with a terminal illness use language to construct a narrative about their “living-with-dying” experience. Design/methodology/approach This investigation is a secondary analysis based on a corpus of health and illness narratives collected by the Health Experiences Research Group at the University of Oxford and published by the DIPEx charity (available at: http://healthtalk.org/home). Findings This study shows that there are qualitative differences in the way in which not only elderly people but also men and women report their experience with terminal illness and their relation to death. Originality/value Understanding the different perspectives from which elderly people narrate their experiences of how they live while dying from terminal illness can help health professionals to develop more effective all-inclusive health policies and practices in end-of-life care.