Dis, I agree there needs to be serious debate re later life health care. It's good to see more focus being placed on this.
You're probably familiar with Dr Atol Gawande whose books and commentary on how doctors need to shift their focus in the later stages of life from 'cure' to understanding what the patient most values.
He says it is rarely the prolongation of life by virtue of heroic measures, with all sorts of intrusive intubations etc, but rather the acceptance that life is coming to an end, and the assistance to make what remains of the best quality.
Often (at least in my observations) the determination to engage aggressive therapy is the choice of the family, rather than the patient, because they can't face the loss of the parent.
Recently I spoke with someone whose mother had finally died, after being completely demented and unable to move, communicate etc in a nursing home for more than a decade.
But she still went there twice a day, pushing mushy food into the mother, despite the old lady resisting. Then each time she developed a pneumonia, instead of just making her comfortable and letting her die, they insisted on hospital admission, IV antibiotics, etc.
Just madness. And immensely expensive.
