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The purpose of this investigation was to explore the preventive value of anticipatory grief on the medical adjustment of the aged bereaved. Data were collected for 81 surviving widows and widowers 6 mo. After their loss. Sixteen of the bereaved had spouses who died of a short-term illness, while the remaining 65 subjects were widowed because of a spouse who died of a chronic illness. Thesetwo groups were compared on three criteria of medical adjustment: physician office visits, feeling illwithout contacting a physician, and use of psychotropic medications. The data indicated that the aged bereaved of a lengthy chronic fatal illness did worse than the bereaved of a shorter chronic illness death. By sex, no significant differences were found between widows and widowers of a shortterm illness death. However, differences were noted for the chronic illness category, and within this category for length of chronicity. In both cases widowers showed more medical problems than widows. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]