According to the European Commission, by 2025 more than 20% of Europeans will be 65 or over. This phenomenon is sometimes called the greying of Europe.

Chronic disease affects more than 80 percent of people over 65. It costs an estimated 700 billion euros in health care spending each year in Europe.

Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

1. Is a hospital room full of machines and tubes really the best place to spend our final days before we rest in peace? A “good death” may sound like a contradiction of terms, but the vast majority of Americans (70 percent in one poll) do agree that if they are going to die, they would like to die at home.
CBS News, April 2014.
2. To baby boomers, a good death is more about a good life. When they can’t have that any longer, it’s time to pull the plug. This will be the first generation to broadly eschew painful life-extending procedures and make the most of palliative care to live better in fewer days, and then die with dignity.
Time, August 2013.
3. I’ve said in my advanced directives, if I have any illness that will kill me where treatment has not got at least a 95 per cent chance of my returning to a totally independent life, I don’t want to live.
The Independent, April 2015.
4. In modern society people no longer die at home, but hidden away in hospitals. And very often the bereaved no longer wear visible signs of mourning. Dying used to be an integral part of social life. It is now a source of terror and people try to hide death as much as they can.