Prolonging Living or Prolonging Dying?

musicprnt
Sun, 07 Aug 2016 16:56:57 +0000

This is such a personal issue, there really are no right answers. My MIL has severe dementia, she basically stopped having much in the way of cognitive function 10 years ago, yet she keeps on living in the facility she is in. My wife basically told them not to do anything extraordinary other than keep her comfortable and let nature take its course…it can be especially rough when it is a parent you don’t have a good relationship with, like with my mother in law.

I agree that quality of life depends on the person, and also our ideas of what is or isn’t quality can change. For me, it would be by mental facilities, I could take a lot of physical things, but if my mind truly starts going it would be difficult.

I think what upsets me is when people talk about these kind of things in black and white terms, because it takes out the very individual things we talk about. Those (who are very few IME) who think that these decisions should be outside the hands of people and their families seem to lose the empathy for those going through it, whole those on ethical/religious grounds who say life should be preserved no matter what seem to lack the same empathy IMO.

Those who advocate ‘keep life going no matter what’, seem to ignore the other costs, to the loved ones who have to watch or the person themselves go through something they don’t want to. Then, too, the cost of maintaining life is very, very expensive, a majority of health care costs come from the last couple of months of life (I think the last I heard was 70%, but def more than 50%). Among other things, how many people who need medical treatment could be treated with the money spent keeping people alive those couple of months? On the other hand, for those who advocate intervention, basically outsiders making those decisions, how about the feelings of those around the person who is dying? And will their decisions be based on deciding what is really hopeless, or their own ideas? If these decisions come down to a person or small group of people, how do you keep out bias making decisions (because of handicaps, the income level of the person who is dying, religious beliefs, whatever…)?

For me this comes down to issues that revolve around issues of ethics and morality that aren’t cut and dried, that is has to come down to personal choice and decisions, and I think those wanting to make the decisions for them, whichever way they view things, are wrong, because both ends leave out it seems to be compassion for the person suffering and those around them or the consequences of their advocacy.