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.
Things I’ve learned from dying
Living, knowing you are going to die Drawn, as I am, to learning ever more about how we die, and how ‘one’ dies, this David Dow title, "Things I've learned from Dying " had me at ‘hello’ Dow – who is very much alive - is a death row lawyer in Texas . He writes...
Communicating Prognosis at the End of Life
How to tell patients they're likely to die Health care professionals often have difficulty facilitating hope and coping strategies when managing end-of-life issues. Advising a limited life expectancy has an obvious impact on the patients, caregivers and their...
Dementia: Feeding tubes may add to risk of bed sores
PEG or Percutaneous endoscopic gastric feeding tubes, long assumed to help bed-bound dementia patients stave off or overcome bed sores/pressure ulcers, may instead make the wounds more likely to develop or not improve, according to a study. "We see a substantial risk...
Substitute Decision-Makers Suffer Post-Traumatic-Stress
Surrogates suffer in their role as patients' decision-makers "A Systematic review: the effect on surrogates of making treatment decisions for others"– published in the Annals of Internal Medicine – was the topic of discussion on Pallimed: A Hospice & Palliative...
