President Trump has stormed past accepted professional practices and triggered alarms about ethical decision making by caregivers, as he persists in his noisy advocacy for treating seriously ill patients with Covid-19 infections with an unproven pair of prescription drugs. Promoting this drug regimen — on social media and in White House news conferences — has….
Continue ReadingEnd of Life
For seniors, harsh realities about dying at home, dementia drugs, and job harms
Although Americans may have particular wishes as to how their lives might close out, they aren’t getting these optimal outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. Instead, the much-desired option of dying at home is proving to be stressful and draining to the extreme for families, and, when it comes to the dreaded loss of….
Continue ReadingVirginia hospital assailed for seeking court actions to strip patients of decisions on care
A Virginia hospital has found an eyebrow-raising solution to some of its struggles with elderly, poor, and sick patients who take up beds and medical resources that might generate more revenue and less headache for the institution: Administrators hired a law firm and turned to the courts to strip legal control over the frail seniors….
Continue ReadingHome care for the aged has become a quiet calamity for all involved
Americans are confronting a care-giving calamity with the elderly at home, and the alarms are sounding loudly about it. But are experts and politicians grasping the severity of this crushing health care shortfall? The New York Times, Vox, Washington Post, and Forbes all published detailed and solid news articles about the nation’s quiet nightmare with….
Continue ReadingU.S. must boost hospice oversight, watchdog warns, citing serious lapses
Lawmakers and regulators must significantly improve the oversight of the burgeoning business of hospice care, a federal watchdog says. Its report came with two notable numbers: from 2012 through 2016, health inspectors cited 87% of the end-of-life care facilities for deficiencies, with 20% of them having lapses serious enough to endanger patients. In one case cited….
Continue ReadingConcerns rise over costly emergency intervention — a ‘bridge to nowhere?’
Medical ethicists and patient advocates are raising concerns about a big, costly, and often unsuccessful procedure that “pumps blood out of the body, oxygenates it, and returns it to the body, keeping a person alive for days, weeks or months, even when their heart or lungs don’t work,” the Kaiser Health News Service reported. Extracorporeal….
Continue ReadingIs this any way to learn you’re dying — hearing MDs chat outside exam room?
Ron Naito already had been rebuffed by one specialist about the severity of his illness. He was awaiting in a doctor’s examining room for his lab test results and a consultation with a second expert about his already advanced cancer. What happened next stunned the Portland, Ore., resident. But now he’s doing something to help….
Continue ReadingWith seniors, special focus can be beneficial — in tough surgeries and more
Recognizing that seniors face different health challenges than younger folks could help doctors and hospitals better safeguard older patients who undergo complex and demanding surgery. Paying heightened attention to age’s changes also can be beneficial to older adults in protecting themselves from damaging falls and getting retirees to keep moving to stay fitter — without….
Continue ReadingUncle Sam forced to disclose secret list of 400 poorly performing nursing homes
Federal regulators have given up the unwarranted secrecy enshrouding their watchdog efforts on the nation’s most problematic nursing homes. With prodding from the U.S. senators from Pennsylvania, Democrat Bob Casey (above left) and Republican Pat Toomey (above right), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) disclosed its list of hundreds of nursing homes that….
Continue ReadingMiddle-class seniors won’t be able to afford assisted care when they need it
As the nation rapidly grays and income disparities widen by the day, a sizable number of Americans — a group that built the nation to greatness and has been its economic bedrock — is headed to yet another ugly indignity: More than half of middle-income seniors won’t be able to afford their medical expenses and….
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