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December 3, 2008 2:32:01 AM CST

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Slow Medicine Lets Elderly Go More Gracefully

Posted May 5, 08 12:12 PM CDT in Science & Health 

(Newser) – In a medical culture seemingly aimed at reviving and resuscitating, the slow medicine approach instead allows elderly patients to weigh the risks and burdens of treatment against the likelihood that it will significantly extend their lives. For many seniors, the philosophy offers the freedom to choose comfort over cure, dying without the companionship of machines, the New York Times reports.

Slow medicine is well suited for nursing homes, but the idea is foreign to many doctors. “The culture has a built-in bias that everything that can be done will be done,” explains a UCLA doctor who says aggressive treatment for the elderly can often be "inhumane." With prognoses typically low for octogenarians, intense approaches don't buy much time anyway.

Source New York Times

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Pallative care seeks to provide physical and psychological comfort when no physical cure is possible.   (KRT Photos)
In nursing homes and hospices, medical care frequently aims at comfort over cure. Seniors who go to the hospital will often see all stops pulled out to save them, even if that's not what they want.   (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, file)
Many people will want doctors to do everything they can, but the recovery rates for octo- and nonagenarians after procedures like CPR are slim - only 2% survive more than a month.   (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
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health care • death • nursing homes • old age • eldercare • geriatric medicine • end of life care • hospice


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