Prolonging Living or Prolonging Dying?

musicprnt
Mon, 08 Aug 2016 17:49:32 +0000

@dadx:
Those are interesting statistics, and there is truth to that, one study I saw said that the 1% of people who died each year account for 10-12% of costs. However, other articles imply that part of the problem is that while the last months of life themselves have not become more expensive,that the problem is in the months and years leading up to the final months, that it has gotten expensive, if I read what it said correctly. So basically, for example, in the time leading up until the final months the costs have gone up, as doctors, rather than telling the patient what they know to be the truth, that their time has come and they should be making end of life decisions to make the end time as good as possible. People with multi organ failure, people with chronic conditions being kept alive a lot longer, all contribute to the costs, this citing mentions some numbers. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/costs-of-medical-care-at-the-end-of-life.html.

Again, it has to be an individual decision, but if someone has stage IV cancer and all the heroic medicines and such can prolong life by 6 months, basically attached to being in the hospital, is it worth it in terms of quality of life? These are tough decisions, but one of the things they have been saying for years now is that medicine has certainly extended our lifetimes, but that for many people those extended lifetimes are spent wedded to hospitals and care, that the quality of that extended life has not caught up to the length of it…and no, I am not suggesting a Logan’s Run kind of euthenasia or anything of the sort, but I think that doctors and medical providers need to be better at telling patients the truth about what the treatments can and can’t do for them, how long it can extend life and so forth, so better decisions are made about hospice care and about perhaps accepting that anything done at the current point would lead to being alive longer but perhaps not the way they would wish to live, and making what time is left as comfortable as possible. It has to be up to the person who is sick and their family, but I think having the right information is important, too.