How baby boomers have revolutionalized the health care industryBaby boomers are America’s largest generation and have spent a significant proportion of their life transforming cultural expectations, ideas and expectations. This is well illustrated by civil rights movement, women’s movement and environmental movement. Now, the big question that everyone is asking is whether the baby boomers are also going to change our cultural expectations, practices and ideas when it comes to end of life. If the answer to this question is yes, here are my recommendations and predictions about this revolutionary generation.

Baby boomers will develop technologies to live longer

One thing that is for sure about baby boomers is that they expect to live a longer life and will seek the necessary technologies to make this a reality. Life expectancies have been extending even though the problem of obesity could be changing this soon. I recommend strongly that the baby boomers generation seek out technologies, which extend life’s quality rather than just quantity. For instance, don’t opt for medical interventions, which just prolong days on this planet even though this means lying in bed where you can only pee or poop with help. The best technology is one that combines quality and quantity.

Baby boomers will start ‘natural death’ movement

The consciousness of the baby boomer is probably the reason behind natural death movement. Starting off in 1960s, this movement was launched with efforts of ‘de-medicalizing childbirth’ with varying general culture penetration degree. The results of the movement included increased mid-wife growth, rise of home birth movement and architectural changes to delivery and labor rooms, which ended up making the experience of birthing a family centered event and became even more intimate. Soon, the baby boomers will de- medicalizes death and will be regarded like a typical natural event which is manageable in natural settings like home. For people who will have to go through a dying experience at the hospital, more efforts are going to be made for humanizing the entire experience and making death more intimate. New dedicated hospice rooms and units are going to be built with their design emphasizing more on comfort and home like surroundings that encourage gathering of families and final intimacies.

Baby boomers will try to control the dying process

This is well expressed by the movement of right to die. Even though I don’t really support euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide, I understand the need to control the process of dying and efforts to reduce suffering. Personally, I believe that this is easy to accomplish without having to consume a substance that ends life. With the right medications, it is possible to control physical suffering and this creates time for quality social, cultural, spiritual and emotional reconciliation and closure. In addition, opting for the comfort focused health care helps you in dying expectantly and the place you want to be, usually at home in most cases.