Grinnell College Resource Available on End-of-life Care

Newswise — A confluence of trends in the U.S. raises new questions about how to deal with the needs of individuals at the end of life as the baby boomer generation threatens to overwhelm existing infrastructure and care facilities and medical technology extends life duration. Grinnell College assistant professor of sociology Karla Erickson studies the relationships between caregivers, elderly patients, and their families and is at work on a book about "Laboring at the End of Life." Her research questions who should care for the elderly, what conditions of care should be, the social context of aging in the United States, what individuals imagine as an ideal context for care, and the different forces shaping aging in the 21st century.