Word: dementias
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...study, led by Associate Professor of Medicine Susan L. Mitchell, followed 323 patients with advanced dementia in 22 different nursing homes for 18 months...
Through interviews with the patients, their families, and the nursing homes’ caretakers, the researchers found that patients with end-stage dementia did not receive an ideal quality of care for their condition...
...Harvard Medical School study recommends that patients with advanced dementia be given the same quality care as patients with terminal illnesses such as cancer or heart failure...
...interventions can themselves cause distress and pain while providing, at best, questionable benefit and minimal prolongation of life, experts say. Among the family members who directed these residents' care, however, those who believed that the resident had less than six months to live and understood the nature of advanced dementia were less likely to intervene aggressively than caregivers who lacked such understanding. "Clinicians, patients' families and nursing-home staff need to recognize and treat advanced dementia as a terminal illness requiring palliative care," wrote Sachs in his editorial, noting that patients need not be close to death to warrant pain...
Experts say part of the reason it is so common to intervene in dementia cases is that the patient, by definition, cannot make medical decisions autonomously, leaving a relative or friend to serve as their health-care proxy. "Family members are much less likely to forgo treatments or let go. An 80-year-old patient will tell you, 'I have lived a good, long life. I have no regrets.' But talk to his 50-year-old son, and he isn't ready. Being the decision maker for someone else is a much harder thing to do," says Sachs, who says...