ABSTRACT
In his speech on the seven ages of man, Jacques offers a narrative of age and diminution that continues to resonate. This chapter explores the ways in which a diagnosis of frailty creates particular ethical questions that are, it is argued, richly elucidated and understood by a narrative approach. It is suggested that there are different types of narratives, such as, societal, cultural, pathographies and individual, each having a role in informing how one think about, and respond to, the concept of frailty. The British Geriatrics Society describes frailty as 'a distinctive health state related to the ageing process in which multiple body systems gradually lose their in-built reserves'. Narrative ethics attends to both the 'telling' and the 'ways of knowing'. Cases and scenarios are common in both medicine and ethics. The principal concepts that underpin Western concepts of frailty are, it is suggested, risk, uncertainty, vulnerability, dependency and, perhaps most difficult of all, inevitability.
