Now here I agree with you. But I think there are at least two parts to this problem. One is that people are being kept alive long after their quality of life is gone. I'm thinking of someone who has had a debilitating stroke or has dementia. Yes, we should stop intervening medically to prolong needless suffering.
The other part, though, is that many ailments are treatable now so that the person has a decent quality of life apart from the physical limitations. They do fine as long as they have someone else to do the physical work of living for them. The "debilitated" stage of older age is lasting much longer for people, and that's a problem for all of society. Society at least here in the US has devoted woefully inadequate resources to providing for the needs of these individuals. Family members are roped in because there often is no other choice. As I've said elsewhere (and loudly, and often) I think that situation is far from ideal.
Sunny, we are talking about prolonging life for individuals who have lost their quality of life. And their minds. About doctors who order and perform unnecessary tests and treatments—like the dentist who recommended out a 96 year old woman’s teeth & making her dentures at a cost of $6000! About putting painful feeding tubes in patients with advanced dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
My husband’s grandfather had dementia. The last 3-4 years of his life, he was confined to a bed, had stopped speaking and the family visited him in the nursing home once or twice a year. Almost in a vegetative state. And the last 2 years of his life, he was hospitalized with pneumonia numerous times for 2-3 weeks, they kept prolonging his life and for what? All so he could go back to the nursing home in his vegetative state.
I agree with most of the comments on here. Thankful that this online forum to voice opinions/give guidance. I was screaming myself before I found this caring site.
People don't understand that doctors will do as much as patients will allow/offer them in their waning years.
It's not the drs. They are fully aware they're keeping people alive long past their sell by dates.
My SIL is a gastroenterologist and refuses to do "routine" colonoscopies on people over 70-75. If there is a obvious problem, then yes, but after my last colonoscopy he said "You never need another one." The risks far outweigh the benefits.
MANY of his patients are geriatric--and he does what he can for them, of course, but he'd be the first to say that people are CHOOSING to live longer through medicines and procedures that keep them ALIVE--but at what cost?
I am confused about the topic...how is medical science extending the elderly into this hell? The fact is people are living longer, therefore so are their minds. I believe medical science, being doctors I’m assuming, is trying to make the elderly comfortable in this stage of life. Of course they prescribe blood pressure meds and pain meds...they are human beings living their life. If you have an elder lovesd one with dementia it doesn’t mean they have to have colonoscopies or mammograms, these are screenings for people who may do something about the outcome if well enough. If your 86 why keep doing this?? Dementia is a terminal disease eventually, so let our loved ones live the rest of their lives not being in a doctors office but enjoying what time they have left.
I agree , I refuse to take my mom back and forth to the doctors for their ridiculous treatments. Mammagrams , colonoscopies , test for this and that . What the hell.... she is 86 with dementia and I refuse to prolong her suffering for the sake of the medical community making money off her. She will go to the doctor when she is sick or in pain....the end
I agree; however, it's not just medical science that's extending elderly persons' lives, but the laws that are forcing medical science to continue treatment and not allow those who want to end treatment to die with dignity.
States are finally approving laws that allow death with dignity.
Amen, Segoline, for bringing this up! I join you in the scream. I believe it is wrong to prolong life at the expense of quality of life not only for the patients but also their caregivers. I am fiercely independent and would never allow my choices to impose upon others longterm. A good friend of mine says: Get busy living or get busy dying. That's a good philosophy.
I wonder if some of what causes it is that so many conditions remain unsolved. It seems it is more tolerated in the medical field that elderly live longer with limited capacity. They don't even discuss cures. As caregivers, we cannot refuse treatment that might offer relief. As patients, I think we fear the result of not taking certain meds doesn't mean we die earlier but instead means we live with side effects of things like stroke earlier in life. It's a tough spot. I'll join the screaming.
My dad has been in a memory care facility for 2 years. There are people in his facility that have been rattling around, locked up in that building for over 10 years. They are sad, lost, confused, etc. No way to live. We weren't meant to live 10%-20% of our lives on the back-end in such a state. Really sad.
I guess there are examples of people taking extreme measures to extend life but I think for most of us it would be difficult to point to any one medical intervention as the reason a person is living beyond their quality years. Should my mother have skipped her by pass surgery in 1977? Should we have just shook our heads and let fate decide when she had sepsis in the 1980's? Maybe she shouldn't have been taking BP meds and an aspirin a day all those years. I guess it gets a little easier to say she certainly didn't need the statins and aggrenox when she began having TIA's in her 80's, but she was still active and reasonably healthy and I know that my major fear there was a debilitating stroke, not an earlier grave. My mom was taken off almost all her meds when it became clear she wasn't going to get better 5 years before she died. Despite my belief that she would stroke out within week she just kept on living anyway.
Turns out that, for many of us, the promise of our "Golden Years" was a big, fat lie. In reality, that "wonderful time" means either being cognitively dysfunctional, while in extreme physical distress ... or ... taking care of, possibly, a series of loved ones in such conditions ... and/or ... both.
I think it is a disgrace that modern medicine keeps people alive but only to the point that they are existing, not living. If it can bring you back to a point where you have a quality of life then fine, but to just keep a body alive seems like torture to me.
The other part, though, is that many ailments are treatable now so that the person has a decent quality of life apart from the physical limitations. They do fine as long as they have someone else to do the physical work of living for them. The "debilitated" stage of older age is lasting much longer for people, and that's a problem for all of society. Society at least here in the US has devoted woefully inadequate resources to providing for the needs of these individuals. Family members are roped in because there often is no other choice. As I've said elsewhere (and loudly, and often) I think that situation is far from ideal.
My husband’s grandfather had dementia. The last 3-4 years of his life, he was confined to a bed, had stopped speaking and the family visited him in the nursing home once or twice a year. Almost in a vegetative state. And the last 2 years of his life, he was hospitalized with pneumonia numerous times for 2-3 weeks, they kept prolonging his life and for what? All so he could go back to the nursing home in his vegetative state.
It's not the drs. They are fully aware they're keeping people alive long past their sell by dates.
My SIL is a gastroenterologist and refuses to do "routine" colonoscopies on people over 70-75. If there is a obvious problem, then yes, but after my last colonoscopy he said "You never need another one." The risks far outweigh the benefits.
MANY of his patients are geriatric--and he does what he can for them, of course, but he'd be the first to say that people are CHOOSING to live longer through medicines and procedures that keep them ALIVE--but at what cost?
States are finally approving laws that allow death with dignity.
Dr Kervorkian was chastised by many for what he believed in and did.