Modern Medicine can keep you alive
Machines, medications and man-made parts: modern medicine continues to find and develop life-saving and life-prolonging interventions.
Advancements in heart research include:
- Bypass surgery
- Man-made implantable cardiac devices like pacemakers
When organs fail, there’s dialysis for kidney failure, and transplants for kidney, lung, liver and heart. Cancer continues to be researched, and survival rates and life expectancy has greatly increased. For neurological (brain) illness and injury, medications and interventions are emerging, and rehab helps with increased function. Even infections – which were regularly the cause of death in past generations – are now treated with antibiotics.
However, as the body winds down, so-called ‘Heroic Measures’ may do more harm than intended. CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation) Breathing Machines (ventilators), Feeding tubes and specific medications can be considered Heroic Measures or seem more like Futile Treatment. When making decisions about any of these, it can help to understand the longer-term results and possible complications.
Myths about aging, proud octogenerians
Jack Pinkus in action at Baycrest Jack Pinkus, retired pharmacist with 17 years on the Board on the Ontario Pharmacists Association opened his educational session at Baycrest by exploding the following myths: • Age will inevitably bring illness • Damage is already...
5 Steps to a Patient Centered Hospital
Which came first: hospitals or patients? Although filled to the brim with patients, hospitals were created to support doctors, not us patients. Historically, their organizational structure focused on doctors’ needs and doctors’ requirements. The concept of centering...
Personal Support Worker (PSW): caring at life’s end
Dealing with grief and End of Life as a Personal Support Worker Guest Post by Natrice Rese It's something that you are prepared for as a student. It is understood that as a caregiver, a PSW, you will maintain a distance, a separation, a formal kind of relationship...
Pew Research Center:Views on End-of-Life Medical Treatments
Staying Alive: what more of us want to do “The share of the public that says doctors and nurses should do everything possible to save a patient’s life has gone up 9 percentage points since 2005 and 16 points since 1990. From Pew Research Center forum “Views on End...