The general attitudes about death have changed greatly over the course of the 19th and 20th-centuries. Around 1900, a multitude of deaths were attributed to children perishing from diphtheria, pneumonia, and other diseases of the infectious nature. There were many people who had died within their homes, within family circles watching over them. Most of the communities general populace were quite familiar with dying, and any necessary prevention techniques that needed to be employed to prevent death. In today’s society, a majority of people especially those in industrialized countries will tend to die from cancer, heart disease, old age diseases, and/or strokes.

Nowadays roughly 95% of all children within an industrialized country will reach their adult stage of life without being subject to any death induced illness. The majority of deaths occur in hospitals today. As a fact, a majority of young persons won’t even experience a death in the family until they get older. This inexperience of young people coming in contact with death either a loved one, or themselves have been faced with the death induced illness, makes it extremely difficult for young people to talk about death openly with other young people.

There is a substantially increasing rate of deaths among older people, which has led to an ever-changing flow of attitudes about deaths in elderly circles. Many of these older people when they get close to death believe that they have lived their lives and have done so to the best of their ability. Adults on the other hand believe when a child dies or young adult perishes, is seen as nature’s way of being unjust. Conventionally, individuals have confronted death within the realm of religion. Each religion is usually home to a variety of funeral rites which help the grieving person cope with the loss of a loved one.

There is an increasing number of people, especially scientists, who believes death to be a biological process, in which most of us will commonly be subject to at a particular point in our life. During the mid-20th century, psychologists as well as other individuals have grown increasingly interested in the emotional needs of those sick and dying individuals. For instance, there are many who will avoid coming in contact with a sick or dying person because they are afraid of how they will respond emotionally. There are a handful of critically ill patients who remain lonely during their last days of their lives. There is an  increasing amount of establishments i.e. hospitals, and churches that offer death education classes which help family members and friends cope with the death of a loved one.