Abstract

This study is to analyze Korean American senior citizens' perspectives and attitude toward their living and dying. Their satisfaction and adjustments to the present aging lives would depend on how they internalize their on-coming death. The following facts are suggested through this study. 1. Attitude toward present living About the half of Korean senior citizens residing in Los Angeles area, state of California, the USA responded that they were generally happy, however, approximately 40% said so so, and the rest responded their daily living is dull and unhappy. Therefore, psychological and physiological support should be provided to help spend the remaining lives in a better condition. The biggest problems confronting Korean elderly in America are plus the fact of getting old itself and poor health, cooking to survive and the English language difficulties for communication in a foreign country. About 20% of the older respondents pleaded that there were scarcely anybody to share their problems and accompanying distresses. These responses appear to show how necessary it is to provide means to help language communication for older persons and further to provide human resources to share conversation with them. The activities they said they were doing were some voluntary works, using of leisure time, visiting friends, religious activities and studying English conversation. It seems most of the elderly respondents desired to get involved in some voluntary works for their community. About 80% desired for even simple kinds of jobs to do and that suggests the degree of how high their needs for activities is. It may only sound idealistic to regain a meaning of life by having elderly people participate in constructive activities, however, it is badly needed to seek for some ways to let them take part in such as the service activities depending on ones interest. Looking back on their past living, about one half of the elderly respondents perceived that they spent very worthy life while another half said their past living could not be highly evaluated. Only about 20% perceived themselves as valuable being and the majority believed they were not valuable and useless. This tendency appeared more in the male respondents than in the female counterparts. This sort of negative self evaluation could very well be one of the important elements to make their lives unhappy and unsatisfied. Therefore, it is necessasary to provide reeducational programs which can reactivate the living of the elderly as positive ones. It should be stressed that one of the most important plans for elderly for their remaining lives is the health management develope educational programs for mental and physical health management and provide with facilities in order to fulfill their needs. 2. Attitude toward death Differences between male and female respondents are shown in the perspectives about the death. Most of the male respondents regarded death as the end of life or the eternal resting place while female counterparts perceived it as the beginning of the future life or God's provision. Except about 10% of the respondents, most respondents seemed to accept the feeling about death as natural facts and take without much fear. It agrees with study results from Bengtson (1977), Marshall (1975), Templer (1971). Kalish and Reynold (1976) that the older persons show less fear of death, and the psychologically healthier people could better resolve crisis for death. Marshall(1975) attributed this well taken attitude of the elderly toward death to the death expecting socialization as the death come closer to the impending reality. According to Rhudick and Andrew (1961), showing of such responses of older persons were not because the fear of death in the elderly did not exist at all, but because they would not be willing to recognize the fear or they would not be ready to recognize it. Although the death is unavoidable, about 60% of respondents expressed their desires to live longer. For the preparation for the death, about 60% have listed purchase of graveyard, life insurance, declaration of wills, while 34% said they had no preparation of any kind. Most of the respondents tended to avoid the thoughts or the talks about the death. Even though they did not want to share the talk about the death in general, their peer group friends were the main objects to discuss the matter with rather than with their spouses or children. Majority of the respondents illustrated that they wanted to try their best to have their illness cured however their illness seemed incurable. This respons agrees with their desires to put their lives' plans in health management and with the hopes to live longer. 3. Attitude toward death and related varibles The issue whether the older people accept death affirmatively or negatively is considered to give a big impact on the attitude and adjustments to the present living. The study result illustrates that the elderly respondents who accepted death more affirmatively seemed to show tendency to have religion, more satisfacion and less anxiety of their present living, evaluate past living meaningful, showed lighter prospects toward the future living, and evaluated their health condition good and tended to believe in the after-death-world. These results agree with Swenson's (1961) study which illustrated a significant correlation betwen the attitude toward death, religion and health evaluation. It also coinside with Marshall's(1975) study showed corredlation between ones attitude toward death and the evaluation of the past living. In the variables that were correlated to the length of the expected life, the elderly who desired the longer the length of the expected life, the healthier they said they were, evaluated their present living more useful and valuable, had life satisfaction and carried out many activities, and had lighter future prospects and less anxiety. It appears that the older persons who thought more about death had poorer health, more anxiety, much negative attitude toward daily life and evaluated themselves presently useless. The results of this study agree with Rhudick's(1961) work which illustrated that concerns much about death was a reflection of their poor health and anxiety. The present study shows no correlation either between the amount of thoughts about death and the age, or between the length of the expected remaining life and the future perspectives. In the attitude toward the euthenasia, more than 60% of the subjects opposed to it and only about 10% stronly approved. People who were more negative toward euthanasia tended to have religion, have more experiences of separation from death, want to live longer, have more attachment to living and evaluate ones past living valuable. Reviewing these results, we can see the elements like the degree of life satisfaction and anxiety of the present living and the self-evaluation of self play important roles in the perspectives and attitude toward life and death. Therefore, it is necessary to develope and provide multi-demension reeducational programs for older people to help make positive adjustments. It is also necessary to help older people to attain psychological feeling of security by elevating self awareness and self respect through physical and economic provisions as well as psychological supports. Various handedness measures were used to investigate the relationship betwwen hand preference and actual performance by the lift and right hands (bimanual activity, unimanual spped and dexteity, unimanual stmgth). The primary task was the Critical Angle Board, a simultaneous bimanual coying thaske. Subjects with a strong hand preference (either right or left) showed bess intedference from contral ateral activity of the nondominant hand then ambidextrous subjects. Ouerall, speed and dexterity of the nondominant hand relative to the dominant hand was greater in older subjects, while preference for the dominant hand in right handers increased with age.