Cant wait to get chastised...Why are we keeping elderly (with multiple problems) alive to live crappy lives? I find it selfish on families and the medical community, hospitals, etc. People are benefitting from the inevitable? We are more humane to our pets than our family. Not to mention how rich pharmaceutical companies have become (and doctors paid by them as well). How many drug commercials do you see every evening on television? I sure don't want someone keeping me alive in a nursing home!
Medical Aid In Dying is a means by which a physician provides a prescription for a lethal dose of medication with which a person can end their life at their request. Some people call this physician-assisted suicide or assisted suicide.
Since you feel so strongly that elders shouldn't be living past their expiration dates, please flood your national and state lawmakers with requests to make MAID legal now. Either that or start stranding old people on ice floes. That works too.
You are not.
The elderly are kept alive in spite of having miserable, painful, horrible lives because they generate money. All old American people (age 65 and up) have Medicare and that is the real cash cow. The elderly of today usually have small assets too. Like real estate, insurance policies, savings, and small investments. The care industry wants it all. So some poor elderly person out of it with dementia and living a wretched existence in a nursing home must be kept alive at all costs.
The part that bothers me is that the healthcare industrial complex will let a young person die in the street if they can't afford good insurance. That's the real tragedy.
I'm sick of it as well. Years ago, people died around the age of 72 years old. Now, they are living well into the 100's. It's good if they have some semblance of life and can still function.
I had a client years ago who was mid-nineties who was tired of living. I still see that poor soul with their fists waving upward yelling to God; "Why won't you take me." This is the time that I wanted to leave homecare. I couldn't bear it. This person didn't live far from me, and I did not go into that neighborhood for almost two years after leaving that case. I had a friend who needed my help who lived in the neighborhood, and I had to tell her no. I didn't give a reason. I was just too traumatized at the time and didn't feel cut out to help anyone at that point. This particular client had traumatized so many aides that went into their home that many quit the agency after that one particular case. The primary care doctor was no help in prescribing medications to calm down their anxiety. It was just a horrible situation for the client and for the care aides being sent into this home. The client would self-medicate taking tylenol with codeine. Some days I would have to call a relative to come open the door to make sure the person was safe and hadn't fallen down the steps and broken their neck. One time it took me an hour to gain entry to their home.
I'm 67 and I've noticed some doctors trying these antics with me. I'm time enough for them. One doctor tried to talk me into going to the emergency room last week. It was late at night, and there was no way I was going to commute all the way downtown to the emergency room being exposed to who knows what risking cross contamination. My age would have worked against me, and they probably would have admitted me just to get the Medicare money. This particular practice has almost a two million dollar deficit that they are trying to close up.
Pardon all of my pronouns, but this forum is not private and questions come up in google.
Instead, she received the pacemaker and lived on in misery for another two years. She did not view the extra two years as a gift. The last year of her life she ended up in a nursing home and she was very bitter and angry to be living there.
I saw the statement of the cost for this debacle. Between the hospital stay in the CICU and the pacemaker, Medicare (aka we taxpayers) paid $230,000 for this. Only the hospital and cardiologist made out on that deal. They and my feeble minded father sentenced my mother to a living hell for an additional two years. It would have been better for all of us if she died in that CICU three years ago.
1. Are you suggesting we make it more clear in our advanced directives what constitutes a good quality of life, and what heroic measures CPR, ventilators, dialysis, artificial feedings we absolutely refuse to prolong our lives?
If so, great.
2. Are you suggesting that we work for laws in which we can self deliver ourselves with our own final exit when we wish to? Many already are legals such as VSED (voluntarily stop eating and drinking). And many are available with cognizance and a 6 month prognosis.
I agree with you if you are speaking of the above.
If, however, you are suggesting we can take grannie into the vet and have her put down for her own good, as we would our aged spaniel? Won't happen.
There are many ways in which we can, if we are mentally able, to make a final exit on our own terms. I suggest a membership in FEN (Final Exit Network). You can also avail yourself of information of Pegasos and Dignitas, in Europe. Onerous paperwork, I am here to tell you. And about 20,000 should be available overall cost and cost of residency prior to exiting. Does require you be of sound mind.
I am in agreement with the oncologist who wrote a lengthy article years ago about how he would stop any vaccines or anything that could prolong his life after age 75. It’s not suicide or euthanasia and it’s individual choice. The only thing that I might differ with is the age. My own father was deep into Alzheimer’s at 69 when cancer took his life. Now I take care of my mother, with her dementia.
I already have notarized papers (that I found online) stating I don’t want to be cajoled into eating if my mind is gone and I’m resisting. I’ll get other papers drawn up stating if I get pneumonia or a UTI, etc. I just want palliative care when/if I get the dx. I expect I will, since I carry the APOE4 gene and I had an early hysterectomy due to OVca and didn’t stay on hormone therapy long term. Plus other risk factors. I don’t care to sit in a facility for maybe years. I’m sure my kids will get no joy out of watching my mind go down the tubes, just as I haven’t with my parents. There are worse things than death.
I visited my 93 year old spinster aunt in a care home, she is wheelchair bound, has chronic kidney failure amongst many other ailments and has 12 medications a day to keep her alive including a sedative as she is slipping into aggressive dementia. In one of her most lucid moments she said she had been praying to die as the home had become an existence. 15 months earlier she was living on her own in sheltered accommodation, then she had a fall and broke her hip. She describes herself as an inmate in a prison and wants it all to end. I am the only relative visiting and have the farthest to come. Walking into that care home (which is actually lovely) depresses me to see so many just sitting in a chair with their chins on their chests all day except for mealtimes when they have to be fed by the staff.
I am now UK retirement age (66) and I can see my generation being the one where we start to get serious about our future needs. My neighbours are around my age and all of us do not want to go into any form of care home, we will make provision to remain in our homes for as long as we can with daily assistance. If we can't then I feel in my case that is the marker to say enough is enough.
I’m dealing with my 90 yo mom who is in rehab and has recently diagnosed pneumonia and on antibiotics. With her recent obvious decline (before she fell and broke her hip) I tried to get her to do a DNR with a loving explanation of why that’s a good idea. I also wanted her into hospice. She seemed on board but in swoops my brother who exerts a strong influence on her who also refuses to discuss a plan of care with me and is obviously in denial, who has helped make her a FULL CODE and of course won’t even discuss hospice. Unbelievable— but also heartbreaking. For her and him it’s largely driven by a mistaken sense of pride. She doesn’t even realize she’s setting herself up for living the rest of her days in misery, as her family sits and watches.
Now the handwriting is on the wall that she CANNOT go back to her home. She thinks she’s going home so all I did yesterday is kick the can down the road that she will have to stay longer. A SNF is definitely in her future and for what ???
So greedy corporations can continue adding to their bottom line.
Part of the "problem" is that most States it is not legal yet for Medically Assisted Suicide., Suicide is the important word.
the States that do have it there are "problems"
You have to get more than 1 doctor to certify that the person has X months to live.
Once you get that you have to get a doctor to write the prescription for the medication that has to be taken.
Once you get the prescription you have to find a pharmacist that will actually fill the prescription.
Once you get the medication YOU, the person with the life limiting disease has to PHYSICALLY take the medication YOURSELF.
that automatically eliminates anyone that has a physical limitation prohibiting them from physically ingesting the medicine. It also eliminates anyone with any form of dementia as they are not decisional and in most cases could not physically take a medicine.
What should happen is...
People while cognizant need to complete a POLST form (known by other names in some States) that indicate what life saving/prolonging measures they want taken.
Families need to honor those wishes.
Families need to get over the "save them at all costs".
Doctors need to be honest with patients and families and when there truly is no quality of life, all reasonable treatments have been exhausted the doctor should refer to Hospice.
Medical personnel are trained to save lives and repair injured bodies. They prescribe medications for just that, it is fully on an individual to decide if they want to take life prolonging medications or not or seek life saving intervention. It is unfair to put that on another human being.
My grandmother lived 12 years after a series of strokes, over 2 days, left her deep in the throws of dementia, she was not getting any life prolonging medications, yet her body kept on for more than a decade. That proves to me when it's our time; it's our time and nothing is going to change that, whether suicide or withholding live saving medications or treatments or pursuing full code.
For everyone that wants to get their paperwork in order when they get the diagnosis, I would caution you that you may be to late at that point. My grandmother was fine on Friday and on Monday she was not and never would be again. You should get the paperwork now while you can, waiting could put you exactly where you are trying to avoid being.
I worked with a man who came in one day and announced his doctor had told him he had pancreatic cancer. His wife, who also worked with us, was away visiting their children in Boston when he was given this diagnosis by his doctor.
When she came back to work the next week, I told her "Trish, I am so sorry to hear about Jerry! How are you holding up with his diagnosis?" And she looked me squarely in the eye and told me this story: her husband had been going to his Rheumatologist complaining about a pain he had been having in his side. This doctor was unable to figure out what it was, and subsequently told Jerry "I don't know what's causing this pain; you must have pancreatic cancer.". No testing, no scans, no nothing. Just the diagnosis. Fortunately, his wife insisted he go for further testing and found out that, no, he most certainly did NOT have pancreatic cancer.
But supposing his wife didn't insist on further testing, and they went ahead and chose MAID? I understand there would be - or at least I hope - requirements for second opinions, and so forth, but what happens if one doctor doesn't want to go against another doctor's opinion? Especially in the case where the first doctor is better known or better connected than the second? If the second doctor would feel it would be the end of their career if they contradicted the first's diagnosis? And what about the areas in this country that are medical deserts, and a second opinion isn't readily available?
Again, I am not opposed in theory to MAID, but I would never chastise someone who is.
And down the road—a quicker road—the bill for that all comes due.
The doctors must tell you about every option and the dangers. I am finding that the Healthcare community are setting guidelines. Its no longer recommended for a woman over 65 to have a pap smear. My neighbor was taken off the liver transplant list at 75. She died within the year. Husband just saw the PSA in bloodwork does not need to be done after 75. This is for the Prostrate. Its just a blood test. If high, it could mean cancer. For my husband it was an infection. Would not have been found and treated without that test.
You are incharge of your destiny. You need to get your ducks in a row and get those forms written up what you want and don't want. And the laws need to be such that your wishes cannot be overriden. Don't live it up to your family to decide.
I also would have my medications looked at. There is no reason for an elderly person to be on Cholesterol meds. It does harm to the liver. I found my Mom was on Meds she was put on in the hospital. One was for fast heart rate caused by her Thyroid. Once the Thyroid was under control, that med should have been dropped. She was given an additional pill in addition to her bloodpressure one because of pain, her bloodpressure was high. The pain was gone, no need for the additional pill.