MSNBC has picked up member Susan Brink's three-part package on planning for the final days of life. Brink wrote the pieces for Kaiser Health News. From her first story:
When 87-year-old Bunny Olenick suffered a massive stroke in December 2008, doctors told her family there was no chance she could recover fully, although her limitations probably wouldn't be known for months. A neurologist told her sons that if she did survive, her ability to communicate would be diminished, and she would likely need around-the-clock care for the rest of her life. What would Bunny want them to do?
Phil Olenick, 59, and his brother Steve, 57, knew that modern American medicine can offer few compassionate exits from this life. Artificial measures in the intensive care unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — things like ventilator-assisted breathing or feeding tubes — stood a chance of prolonging life for Bunny Olenick but in a condition they knew she would abhor.
In the era of modern medicine, there is often no easy way to navigate between an acceptable quality of life and a death with dignity. That was underscored by two recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that some aggressive measures might actually increase pain and speed declines among frail elderly.
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