ABSTRACT

Korea officially became aged society due to extending life expectancy as well as aging population in 2017. One of the social problems issued from the aged society would be a significant change in perspectives about family relationships. Because of the change, many aging parents with disability and/or chronic diseases should begin to reside in long-term care facilities when they need care and help, and most of them will die in the facilities. The care workers who take formal care of the geriatric patients also reside in the facilities, and exposure to dying and death of the patients become one of their common affairs. To make both the patients who reside in the facilities in the last stages of their life and the workers who stay with and care of the patients find the meanings of life, death, and dying would be to become one of social work practice tasks in the aged society.