Word: cures
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...TIME/CNN poll, 7 out of 10 Americans say they want to die at home; instead, three-fourths die in medical institutions. More than a third of dying people spend at least 10 days in intensive-care units, where they often endure torturous (generally futile) attempts at a cure. Specialists say 95% of pain in terminally ill people can be mollified, but studies show that nearly half of Americans die in pain, surrounded and treated by strangers. A recent survey found that 3 out of 5 physicians treating dying patients had known them less than a week...
Changing attitudes means getting more people to give up rescue medicine in favor of comfort care when the hope of a cure is minuscule. "For many people, it's easier to say, 'Whatever you say, Doc,' rather than spend two weeks thinking through your own death," says Lynn. "That's uncomfortable. But life is mostly about grandchildren and gardening, sunrises and eating chocolate. It's not about pills." Fine, but how do you eat a Hershey bar when you know it could be your last...
...solution is hospice, a kind of care for the dying that emphasizes comfort over cure. Hospice patients must forgo further curative and life-prolonging treatments, which means they usually leave the hospital. (A hospice can be a separate place, but usually the word refers to home care.) Doctors, social workers, art therapists and others manage physical pain and help patients navigate the emotional terrain of dying...
...abandon hope of full recovery, hospice is unlikely to become a mainstream phenomenon. Most people want to fight, hang on, hope for a miracle. Recently, Cummins, the jazz producer, heard that he could qualify for a clinical trial. He knew the trial carried only a remote possibility of a cure, but he didn't want to give up. Even so, when he and Nancy totaled the cost of his pain medications--$2,250 a month--they were presented with a cruel choice: opt for hospice to save money, or go for the trial and keep paying for the drugs themselves...
...Lord knows, they don't come too often. We can take comfort in the assurance that if Gore wins in November, as the polls now predict, things will return to normal. And even if Bush wins, it will take more than a president or two to cure Yale's well-deserved inferiority complex...