Studies: Some nursing home elderly get futile care
Associated Press, October 14th, 2009
A surprising number of frail, elderly Americans in nursing homes are
suffering from futile care at the end of their lives, two new federally
funded studies reveal.
One found that putting nursing home residents
with failing kidneys on dialysis didn't improve their quality of life
and may even push them into further decline. The other showed many with
advanced dementia will die within six months and perhaps should have
hospice care instead of aggressive treatment.
Medical
experts say the new research emphasizes the need for doctors,
caregivers and families to consider making the feeble elderly who are
near death comfortable rather than treating them as if a cure were
possible — more like the palliative care given to terminally ill cancer patients.
"We probably need to be offering a palliative care option to many more patients to make the last days of their lives as comfortable as possible," said Dr. Mark Zeidel of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the studies.
Palliative care focuses on managing symptoms of a disease and a main goal is to relieve pain at the end of life.
End-of-life care became a divisive issue in the national health care
reform debate this summer after one proposal included Medicare
reimbursement for doctors who consult with patients on end-of-life
counseling. Critics called the counseling "death panels" and a step
toward euthanasia. The Obama administration denied those claims, yet
has signaled the Medicare benefit will be dropped.
The new studies are published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
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