Chapter 2: Factors of Development

Chapter 2

FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION:

               

You acquired your eyes from your mother and the color of your hair from your father. But where did you get your bubbly personality? Did you also learn this from your parents or was it determined by your genes?         

Similarities and differences among individuals raise one of the fundamental questions: How can we distinguish between environmental causes and hereditary causes of behavior? This question exemplifies the nature-nurture issue.                

                Think for a minute about a particular characteristic that you and several people in your family have, such as intelligence, good looks, or a friendly, outgoing personality. Why is this trait so prevalent? Is it because you inherited the trait from your parents? Or is it because of where and how you and your parents were brought up?      

Answers to these questions illustrate different positions on the nature-nurture issue, which involves the degree to which genetic or hereditary influences and experiential or environmental influences determine the kind of person you are.

Developmental psychologists today agree that both nature (an organism’s biological inheritance) and nurture (an organism’s environmental experiences) interact to produce specific developmental patterns and outcomes.

The Role of Maturity in Heredity

                Maturation is an extension of heredity. It is the unfolding of all hereditary potentials of an individual. It refers to the changes the body undergoes in such a way that it is ready to function.

A.      Maturity follows an orderly manner.

B.      Maturity is not uniform for all individuals.

C.      Maturity follows the growth pattern of the individual.

ü  Cephalocaudal law states that development spreads from head to foot.

ü  Proximodistal law states that development spreads from the trunk to extremities.

Human Development

                Human development refers to the study of human cycle from conception to death. It focuses on the continuous chronological processes or changes which are cumulative. It encompasses the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional changes that occur in an individual.

 

PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT: Conception to Birth

Chromosomes are rod-shaped structures that contain all basic hereditary information of an organism. At conception, an organism has twenty three pairs of chromosomes.

enes are smaller units that are composed of sequences of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) through which genetic information is transmitted. Genes produce the particular characteristics of each person. A child’s sex is determined by a particular combination of genes.

                                                XX combination results to a female child

                                                XY combination results to a male child

DETERMINATION OF TWINS

Fraternal twins

                Fraternal twins are conceive when a mother releases two separate eggs and these are fertilized by two separate sperm to form two separate embryos and then make two separate babies. Fraternal twins share up to 50% of their genes. Fraternal twins can be boy/boy, girl/girl, or boy/girl sets.

Identical twins

                With identical twins, one egg from the mother is fertilized by one sperm from the father, and the embryo splits and two fetuses grow. If the zygote splits very early (in the first 2 days after fertilization) they may develop separate placentas and separate sacs. These are called dichorionic, diamniotic (or 'di/di') twins. 

                While all fraternal twins are 'di/di', this occurs 20 - 30% of the time in identical twins. Most of the time in identical twins the zygote will split after 2 days, resulting in a shared placenta, but two separate sacs. These are called monochorionic, diamniotic ('mono/di') twins. Finally, the zygote may split extremely late, resulting in conjoined twins (Siamese twins).

GENETIC DEFECTS

Phenylketonuria (PKU) refers to a child who is not able to produce an enzyme that is required for normal development. This results to profound mental retardation caused by an accumulation of poisons.

1)      Sickle-cell anemia refers to the disease characterized by abnormally shaped red blood cells. Children with the disease may have poor appetites, swollen stomachs, yellowish eyes and cognitive difficulties. They frequently die during childhood (Schatz, Finke, Kellett & Kramer, 2002; Helps, Fuggle, Udwin & Dick, 2003).

2)      Tay-Sachs Disease refers to a disease wherein the body is not capable of braking down fats.

3)      Down Syndrome which is one of the causes of mental retardation refers to a disease wherein the zygote receives an extra chromosome at the moment of conception. If the mother is over 35 at the time of conception, there is a higher chance for the baby to develop Down Syndrome. 

STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT

                Fertilization, wherein a single sperm cell from the male penetrates the female’s ovum is the onset of conception.

Germinal Period – weeks 1 and 2

                The zygote is a single cell with 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 from the father. After 1 week and many cell divisions, the zygote is made up of 100 to 150 cells. By the end of the second week, the mass of cells has attached to the uterine wall.

Embryonic Period – weeks 3 through 8

                The embryonic period is characterized by the emergence of the neural tube, which eventually becomes the spinal cord, the appearance of eyes and the differentiation of the cells of the heart. Arm and leg buds emerge during the fourth week. Heartbeat begins, arms and legs become more differentiated, the face starts to form and the intestinal tract appears at 5 to 8 weeks.

Fetal Period – 2 through 9 months

                The fetal period is illustrated by mature organs and muscles. During this time, the mother feels the fetus move for the first time. Eyes and eyelids are completely formed at 6 months. Fine layer of hair, grasping reflex and irregular breathing also begins at this point. At 7 to 9 months, the fetus is much longer and functions of organs step up.

STAGES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

                Everyone undergoes different stages of growth. Each stage represents significant changes and different problems an individual goes through in one’s lifespan.

Infancy – 1 month to 1 year

A. Physical Changes

Growth is more rapid in infancy than in any other period. Infants double their weight by 3 months and triple by their 1^st birthday. Roughly 40% of the body’s energy is devoted to growth. Most of the remaining energy is used for digestion, respiration and physical activity.

An infant’s feelings of hunger, pain, when it smiles, laughs, its efforts to sit upright all reflect the function of the brain and the nervous system.

An adult’s brain weighs a little less than 3 pounds and would easily fit into a pair of hands.

At birth, it weighs 25% of the weight of an adult brain. In the months after birth, the brain grows rapidly so does its structures.

In return, the child learns more things such as motor skills, perception, reaching and grasping.

Reflexes refer to unlearned, involuntary responses that occur automatically in the presence of certain stimuli that are critical for survival.

a)      Rooting reflex refers to an instance when newborns turn their heads toward things that touch their cheeks.

b)      Sucking reflex prompts infants to suck at things that touch their lips.

c)       Gag reflex refers to clearing the throat.

d)      Startle reflex refers to series of movements in which an infant flings out the arms, fans the fingers and arches the back in response to sudden noise.

e)      Babinski reflex is characterized by a baby’s toes fanning out when the outer edge of the sole of the foot is stroked.

B. Cognitive Changes

                Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, thinks and gains an understanding of his or her world through the interaction and influence of genetic and learned factors.

                Jean Piaget believed that from early on, a child acts like a tiny scientist who is actively involved in making guesses or hypotheses about how the world works. Piaget believed that children learned to understand things, such as what to do with blocks,        through two active processes that he called assimilation and       accommodation.

                Assimilation is the process by which a child uses old methods or experiences to deal with new situations. While accommodation is the process by which a child changes old methods to deal with or adjust to new situations.

               

C. Emotional Changes

                Emotional development refers to the influence and interaction of genetic factors, brain changes, cognitive factors, coping   abilities, and cultural factors in the development of emotional   behaviors, expressions, thoughts and feelings (Goldsmith, 2003).

                One reason each of the sextuplets develop different emotional make up so very early in life involves something called temperament. Temperament refers to relatively stable and long lasting individual differences in mood and emotional behavior, which          emerge early in childhood because these differences are largely influenced by genetic factors.

On the bases of ratings in a study             done in infants regarding temperament, researchers divided infants into four categories (Thomas & Chess, 1977).

1.       Easy babies, who made up 40% of the sample, were happy and cheerful, had regular sleeping and eating habits, and adapted quickly to new situations.

2.       Slow-to-warm-up babies, who made up 15% of the sample, were more withdrawn, were moody, and tended to take longer to adapt to situations.

3.       Difficult babies, who made up 10% of the sample, were fussy, fearful of new situations, and more intense in their reactions. During the course of the seven-year study, difficult babies developed more serious emotional problems than easy or slow-to-warm-up babies.

4.       No-single-category babies, who made up 35% of the sample, had a variety of traits and could not be classified into one of the other three categories.

D. Social Changes

                One of the best-known theories is that of Sigmund Freud, who said that each of us goes through five successive psychosexual stages.

The psychosexual stages are five different developmental period – oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital stages – during which the individual seeks pleasure from different areas of the body that are associated with sexual feelings.

He emphasized that a child’s first five years were most important to social and personality development.

               

·                     Oral Stage is the stage from early infancy to the first 18 months of life. According to Freud, it is a time when the infant’s pleasure seeking is centered on the mouth. Such pleasure seeking activities include sucking, chewing, and biting.

·                     Anal stage lasts from the age of about 1 & ½ to 3 and is a time when the infant’s pleasure seeking is centered on the anus and its functions of elimination.

·                     Phallic stage lasts from about age 3 – 6 and is a time when the infant’s pleasure seeking is centered on the genitals.

·                      Latency stage lasts from about age 6 to puberty.It is a time when the child represses sexual thoughts and engages in nonsexual activities, such as developing social and intellectual skills.

·                     Genital stage, which lasts from puberty through adulthood, is a time when the individual has renewed sexual desires that he or she seeks to fulfill through relationships with members of the opposite sex.

Early Childhood (2 - 6 years)

A. Physical Changes

                During this period, children's bodies change proportions               and they start to look more like adults than babies. Arms and legs    stretch to catch up and balance out the head and trunk. Children              also begin to lose their "baby fat" as they develop straighter bodies with             the strong muscles necessary for work and play.

                Children should get plenty of exercise and sleep, and eat a          balanced diet in order to continue to develop strong muscles and       bones and to maintain a healthy weight.

Sleep patterns change during early childhood and are affected by cultural expectations. It is normal for preschool children to develop bedtime rituals that delay going to sleep. Prolonged bedtime struggles or persistent nightmares may indicate emotional disturbances that need attention.

B. Cognitive Processes

Attention refers to a process that determines which sensory information receives additional cognitive processing. When infants or children are presented with a strong or unfamiliar stimulus, orienting response usually occurs. These responses indicate that the child has noticed the stimulus.

Example:  A person fixes eyes on the stimulus, changes in

                  heart rate and brain wave activity.

Habituation refers to the diminished response to a stimulus as it becomes more familiar after repeated presentations of a stimulus. The orienting response and habituation are useful to infants and children. Orienting makes the infant aware of potentially important or dangerous events in the environment. Habituation keeps infants from wasting too much energy on non-significant events.

C. Socio-emotional Development

Attachment refers to an enduring socio-emotional relationship that when formed by children with adults will result to their survival. This person is usually the mother but need not be.

School Age (7 – 12 years)

A. Physical Changes

                Boys and girls are about the same size for most of these years, but girls are most likely than boys to enter puberty toward the end                of the grade school years. Once girls enter puberty, they grow rapidly    and become bigger than boys their age.

According to Erik Erikson, the challenge for the school age children is termed industry versus inferiority. Children can achieve industry by mastering knowledge and intellectual skills. When they do not, they can feel inferior.

B. Cognitive Changes

                Jean Piaget is best known for describing the changes or different stages in cognitive development that occur betweeninfancy               and adulthood (Bjorklund, 2005).

Piaget’s cognitive stages refer to              four different stages – sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete                 operations and formal operations – each of which is more advanced       than the preceding stage because it involves new reasoning and        thinking abilities.

Table 1: Piaget’s Cognitive stages of Development

STAGE	APPROXIMATE AGE	CHARACTERISTICS
Sensorimotor	Birth – 2 years	Infant’s knowledge of the world is based on senses and motor skills. By the end of the period, uses mental representation.
Preoperational thought	2 – 6 years	Child learns how to use symbols such as words and numbers to represent aspects of the world but relates to the world only through his or her perspective.
Concrete operational thought	7 years – early adolescence	Child understands and applies logical operations to experiences provided they are focused on the here and now.
Formal operational thought	Adolescence and beyond	Adolescent or adult thinks abstractly, deals with hypothetical situations, and speculates about what may be possible.

C. Socio - Emotional Changes

     Attachment

The socio-emotional relationship that develops between an infant and a parent is the baby’s 1^st relationship. It should be satisfying and trouble free to set the stage for later relationships.

   Attachment is an enduring socio-emotional relationship that      when formed by children with adults will result to their survival. This person is usually the mother but need not be.

       

Forms of Attachment

1.  Secure Attachment

Baby may or may not cry when the mother leaves but when she returns, the baby wants to be with her. If the  baby is crying, it stops.

2. Avoidant Attachment

                Baby is not upset when the mother leaves and when     she returns, may ignore her by looking away. Babies look as if they’re saying “You left me again, I always have to take care of myself.”

3. Resistant Attachment

                Baby is upset when mother leaves and remains upset when she returns and is difficult to comfort. “Why do you do this? I need you desperately and you leave me without warning.”

4.  Disorganized Attachment

                Baby seems confused when mother leaves and when she returns as if not really understanding what is happening.                                                 “What’s happening? I want you to be here, but you left and now you’re back. I don’t get what’s going on.” 

Adolescence (13 – 20)

A. Physical Changes

                The appearance of body hair, the emergence of breasts and the enlargement of the penis and testicles are all signs that the child is gone and the adolescent has arrived. Adolescents are more concerned about their overall appearance than children and adults.

Signs of Physical Maturation

Puberty denotes two general types of physical changes that mark the transition from childhood to adulthood.

1.       Bodily Changes include a dramatic increase in height and weight as well as changes in the body’s fat and muscle content. Girls typically begin their growth spurt about 2 years before boys do. They start the growth spurt at about age 11 while boys start the growth spurt at about age 13. This 2 year difference in growth spurt can lead to awkward social interactions between 11-12 year old boys and girls because the girls are often taller and look much more mature than the boys.

2. Sexual maturation includes changes in primary sex characteristics which refer to organs that are directly involved in reproduction and changes in secondary sex characteristics which are physical signs of maturity not directly linked to the reproductive organs.

                Menarche refers to the onset of menstruation which typically occurs at age 13. On the other hand, spermarche refers    to the first spontaneous ejaculation which occurs at about age 13.           Initial ejaculations often contain few sperm. Only years later are there sufficient sperm to fertilize an egg.

B. Cognitive Changes

                As you remember, Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states that we all go through four distinct cognitive stages.

As we go  through each stage, we acquire a new and distinct kind of reasoning and thinking that is different from and more advanced than the reasoning abilities we possessed at our previous stage.

Stage 4: Formal Operations

The formal operations stage, the last of Piaget’s four cognitive stages, extends from about age 12 through adulthood.

During this stage, adolescents and adults develop the abilities to think about abstract, or hypothetical concepts, to consider an issue from another’s viewpoint, and to solve cognitive problems in a logical way.

Having the ability to think about and discuss abstract concepts means that adolescents can critically consider their beliefs, attitudes, values and goals as well as discuss a wide range of topics important to their becoming adults.

C. Emotional Changes

A distinctive landmark in adolescence is a romantic relationship which becomes common as children develop and their function changes.

In younger adolescents, romantic relationships offer companionship like that provided by a best  friend and an outlet for sexual exploration. In older adolescents, trust and support become important features of romantic relationships.

Parenting Styles

• Authoritarian parenting combines high control with little warmth. Parents lay down the rules and expect them to be followed without discussion. There is little give and take between parents and children because they do not consider children’s needs or wishes.
• Authoritative parenting combines a fair degree of parental control with being warm and responsive to children. They explain rules and encourage discussion.
• Permissive parenting offers warmth and caring but little parental control. They generally accept their children’s behavior and punish them infrequently.
• Uninvolved parenting provides neither warmth nor control. They provide for their children’s basic physical and emotional needs but little else.

 D. Social Changes

Erik Erikson conceptualized the psychosocial stages of development. Each of which contained a unique psychosocial conflict which every individual should surpass in order for him or her to live a healthy life.

Stage 1: Infancy

Infancy stage lasts from birth to 1 year. The conflict of    this stage is trust VS mistrust. Babies learn either to trust or mistrust that others will care for their basic needs, including nourishment, sucking, warmth, cleanliness, and physical contact.

Stage 2: Early Childhood

Early childhood stage lasts from 1 – 3 years. The conflict of this stage is autonomy VS shame and doubt. According to Erikson, children learn either to be self-sufficient in many activities including toileting, feeding, walking, and talking, or to doubt their own abilities.

Stage 3: Play Age

Play age stage lasts from 3 – 6 years. The conflict of this stage is initiative VS guilt. Children want to undertake many                 adult-like activities, sometimes overstepping the limits set by parents and feeling guilty.

Stage 4: School Age

School age stage lasts from 7 – 12 years. The conflict of this stage is industry VS inferiority. During this stage, children busily learn to be competent and productive or feel inferior and                                              unable to do anything well.

Stage 5: Adolescence

                Adolescence stage lasts from 12 – 20 years. The conflict of this stage is identity VS role confusion. Adolescents try to figure out, “Who am I?” They establish sexual, ethnic, and career identities, or are confused about what future                 roles to play.

Stage 6: Young Adulthood

Young adulthood stage lasts from 20-40 years. The conflict of this stage is intimacy VS isolation. Erikson believed that during this stage, young adults seek companionship and      love with another person or become isolated from others.

Stage 7: Middle Adulthood

This stage lasts from 40-65 years. The conflict of this stage is generativity vs stagnation. Middle adulthood is a time for helping the younger generation develop worthwhile lives; otherwise, lack of involvement leads to a feeling of stagnation. 

Stage 8: Late Adulthood

Late adulthood stage starts at age 65 and lasts up to        death. The conflict of this stage is integrity VS despair. Older     adults try to make sense out of their lives, either seeing life as meaningful whole or despairing at goals never reached and questions never answered.

Emerging Adulthood

                The transition from adolescence to adulthood is now referred to as emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2007). The age range for emerging adulthood is approximately 18-25 years of age.

                During this stage, many  individuals are still exploring which career path they want to follow, what             they want their identity to be, and which lifestyle they want to adopt.

                Most     young adults are in the best physical shape of their lives. The early 20s are the best years for strenuous work, and trouble-free reproduction.

Five Key Features Characterizing Emerging Adulthood:

1.       Identity exploration especially in love and work characterizes the many key changes in identity of emerging adults.

2.       Instability refers to residential changes, instability in love, work and education.

3.       Self-focus characterizes an emerging adult who has a great deal of autonomy in running his/her own life.

4.       Feeling in between because many emerging adults do not consider themselves adolescents yet but still not yet full-fledged adults.

5.       The age of possibilities refers to the time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their lives.

Middle Adulthood (30 – 50)

A. Physical Changes

                One of the most visible physical changes in middle adulthood is appearance. By the 40s or 50s, the skin has begun to wrinkle and sag.

                Individuals lose height and gain weight in middle age. Middle adults become more concerned about health by the 40s.

                For women, entering middle age also means that menopause will occur soon. Menopause produces uncomfortable symptoms insome women such as hot flashes, nausea, fatigue and rapid heartbeat.                

B. Cognitive Development

                Technology and information change rapidly. To keep up with these changes, for most people, college education will probably not be the last educational experience they have in their careers; workers in medicine, nursing, psychology are not required to obtain continuing education credits to stay current in their fields.

                Organizations offer         workshops for their employees, cable channels also offer educational programming.

       

Adult learners differ from younger counterparts in several ways:

1. They have higher need to know why they should learn something before undertaking it.
2. Adults enter a learning situation with more and different experience on which to build.
3. They are most willing to learn those things they believe are necessary to deal with real world problems rather than abstract, hypothetical situations.
4. Most adults are more motivated to learn by internal factors (self esteem, personal satisfaction) than external factors (job promotion, pay raise).

C. Emotional Changes:  Letting Go of Children

                Sometime during the middle age, parents experience 2 positive developments with regard to their children. Suddenly, their children see       them in a new light and the children leave home. When children become young adults, parent-child relationships improve.

                A key     factor    in making this transition as smoothly as possible is the extent to which parents foster and approve of their children’s attempts at being independent.

                Because when children leave home, emotional bonds are disrupted. Women who define themselves more in the role as a mother tend to report more distress and negative mood.

                Some events in a woman’s life during the middle adulthood include becoming divorced, losing a job or caring for a sick parent.

D. Social Change:  Meaning of Work

                Did you ever stop thinking about why we fight the commuting crowds to get to work? For some, work is a source of prestige, social recognition and a sense of worth.

                For others, the excitement, creativity and the opportunity to give something of themselves make work meaningful.

                For most, the main purpose of work is to earn a living. The meaning most of use derive from working includes both the money and personal growth.

Gender Differences in Occupational Selection

                Traditionally, men have been groomed from childhood for future employment. Boys learn at an early age that men are known by the work they do and they are strongly encourage to think about what occupation they would like to have.

                Occupational achievement is stressed as a core element of masculinity. Women used to enter traditional, female dominated occupations such as secretarial, teaching and social work jobs. Nowadays, more opportunities are open for women.

                A growing number of women work in occupations that have been traditionally dominated by men such as construction and engineering.

Late Adulthood (50 – 60)

A. Physical Changes

                Older adults may experience a gradual decline in height because of loss of bone, a further decrease in output of lungs and kidneys, an increase in skin wrinkles, and deterioration in joints.           Sensory organs become less sensitive, resulting to less acute vision, hearing and taste. The heart becomes less effective at pumping blood.

                Menopause occurs in women at about age 50 which results in cessation of both ovulation and the menstrual cycle. Most experience hot flashes, sleep disturbance and dryness of the vagina. Menopause, together with other stressful issues, can          make    

women become moody, depressed, anxious and angry.               However, there is little or no change in the ability to become sexually aroused or to reach orgasm.

                Men on the other hand may require more time and stimulation to have an erection and to reach orgasm. Their decreased sexual abilities can make them uncomfortable and threaten their self-esteem.

                However, having longer periods of stimulation, improving intimate communication and using more imaginative sexual activity can usually compensate for men’s decreased self-confidence (Bartlik & Goldstein, 2001).

               

B. Cognitive Changes

    Attention

                Researchers view attention as having three major components: selection, vigilance and control (Parasuraman, 1998).    Selective attention involves the selection of relevant information and inhibition of irrelevant information. Older adults tend to perform poorer than younger adults on most selective attention tasks (McDowd & Shaw, 2000).

                Vigilance, also called sustained attention, involves the maintenance of attention over time. Whether vigilance ability declines with age is uncertain (Rogers & Fisk, 2001).

                Attentional control refers to people’s abilities to focus, switch and divide attention. If older adults are told where to focus their attention, if a cue is provided to help them shift attention or if the task is simple, then they perform about as well as younger adults. But if the rate at which attention must be shifted is fact or if the task is complex, older adults do less well.

Memory

                Older adults typically do worse on tests of episodic recall; age differences are less on recognition tasks. Differentiating memory changes associated with aging from memory changes due to     disease should be accomplished through comprehensive               evaluations.

C. Emotional Changes

                     In general, older adults have fewer relationships and develop fewer new relationships than younger or middle-aged adults         (Carstensen, 1995). This decline in number does not merely reflect the loss of relationships to death or other means.

                Rather, the changes       reflect a more complicated process (Carstensen, 1993, 1995). This process termed socio-emotional selectivity, implies that social                contact is motivated by many goals, including information seeking, self-concept, and emotional regulation.

               

Widowhood

                The impact of widowhood goes well beyond the ending of a long-term partnership (Martin-Matthews, 1999; Miller, et al., 2004).                       Widowed people may be left alone by family and friends who do not     know how to deal with a bereaved person. As a result, widows and           widowers may lose not only a spouse but also those friends and family                 who feel uncomfortable including a single person rather than a couple in social functions. (Felber, 2000).

                Men and women react differently to widowhood. In general, those who were most dependent on their spouses during the marriage report the highest increase in self-esteem in             widowhood because they have learned to do the tasks formerly done by their spouses (Carr, 2004).

                Widowers are at high risk of dying themselves soon after their spouse either by suicide or by natural causes (Osgood, 1992).

D. Social Changes

                Quality care-giving by family members are needed by older adults. Unfortunately, some older adults who need quality care-giving           by family members or in nursing homes do not receive it. In some cases,              older adults are treated inappropriately.

Defining Elder Abuse and Neglect

Physical abuse:

• the use of physical force that may result in bodily injury, physical pain, or impairment.

Sexual abuse:

• nonconsensual sexual contact of any kind.

Emotional or psychological abuse:

• infliction of anguish, pain, or distress.

Financial or material exploitation:

• the illegal or improper use of an older adult’s funds, property or assets.

Abandonment:

• the desertion of an older adult by an individual who hadphysical custody or otherwise had assumed responsibility for providing care for the older adult.

Neglect:

• refusal or failure to fulfill any part of a person’s  obligation or duties to an older adult.

Self-neglect:

• the behaviors of an older person that threaten his or     her own health or safety, excluding those conscious and voluntary             decisions by a mentally competent and healthy adult.

The Final Passage Ethical Issues in Death

Euthanasia

                Euthanasia can be carried out in two different ways: active and passive.

·                     Active euthanasia involves the deliberate ending of someone’s life, which may be based on a clear statement of the person’s wishes or be a decision made by someone else who has the legal authority to do so.

                Usually, this involves situations in which people are in a persistent vegetative state or suffer from the end stages of a terminal disease.

·                     On the other hand, passive euthanasia involves allowing a person to die by withholding available treatment.

                For example, chemotherapy might be withheld from a cancer patient; a surgical procedure might not be performed; or food could be withdrawn.