"If you show up with cancer & you're 95 years old, we should say...we can't do anything..."

[sheshe2]

59. Every person has the right...

Every person has the right to chose what a doctor can or cannot do for/to them.

End of Life Concerns

Hospice Care
When Is a "Do Not Resuscitate" Order the Right Choice?

Sometime a "natural death" is the best option for everyone.

snip

Recently, I was talking with a patient of mine about whether he would like to sign a DNR. His first answer was that he would like to sign one. He didn’t want to be resuscitated, because he wouldn’t want to live with any kind of brain or heart damage. His daughter then interjected and assured him that people have heart attacks all the time, and they’re fine -- no brain or heart damage. That was enough to change his mind.

He had completed advanced directives previously that stated his wish not to be kept alive on life support. I reminded him of this, and both he and his daughter replied that the paramedics should get him breathing again and to the hospital, and then the doctors could decide what to do. This man had terminal lung cancer that had spread to his brain.



Television has done an excellent job of distorting true medicine, including the resuscitation of dying patients. The medical shows may depict a man who is in cardiac arrest getting CPR and waking up in the middle of chest compressions. Many of the patients shown on TV in the emergency department are revived and back to their old selves in no time. Is it really that simple, though?


I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but I had to inform him of what he was facing. Resuscitation isn’t as clean and gentle as they portray on television. The chest must be compressed hard and deep enough to pump the blood out of the heart. This can lead to broken ribs, punctured lungs and possibly an injured heart.1 Paramedics move beyond the gentle mouth-to-mouth breathing and insert a breathing tube into the patient’s throat. Electrical shocks may have to be delivered to attempt to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm. An intravenous line (IV) would be started, so potent medications could be delivered through it. The patient is transported to the hospital, and if they aren’t already pronounced dead, they may be instantly hooked up to life support machines, without consulting with family.


What are the chances that all of this will work? The statistics, while not highly accurate due to variances in reporting methods, show that survival after resuscitation is 6 to 15% for patients already in a hospital, 1 to 2% for patients in nursing homes and between 4 to 38% for patients who were resuscitated in non-health care End of Life Concerns


Read More: https://www.verywellhealth.com/hands-off-do-not-resuscitate-1132382

My mom has signed one, she will be 94 in a few months and we have been doing homecare for two years. My sibling has signed one and she is a year and a half older than myself. I will sign one in the near future.