End-of-life Care

In medicine, end-of-life care refers to medical care not only of patients in the final hours or days of their lives, but more broadly, medical care of all those with a terminal illness or terminal condition that has become advanced, progressive and incurable.

Regarding cancer care the United States National Cancer Institute writes:

When a patient's health care team determines that the cancer can no longer be controlled, medical testing and cancer treatment often stop. But the patient's care continues. The care focuses on making the patient comfortable. The patient receives medications and treatments to control pain and other symptoms, such as constipation, nausea, and shortness of breath. Some patients remain at home during this time, while others enter a hospital or other facility. Either way, services are available to help patients and their families with the medical, psychological, and spiritual issues surrounding dying. A hospice often provides such services. The time at the end of life is different for each person. Each individual has unique needs for information and support. The patient's and family's questions and concerns about the end of life should be discussed with the health care team as they arise...

Patients and their family members often want to know how long a person is expected to live. This is a hard question to answer. Factors such as where the cancer is located and whether the patient has other illnesses can affect what will happen. Although doctors may be able to make an estimate based on what they know about the patient, they might be hesitant to do so. Doctors may be concerned about over- or underestimating the patient's life span. They also might be fearful of instilling false hope or destroying a person's hope.

End-of-life care requires a range of decisions, including questions of palliative care, patients' right to self-determination (of treatment, life), medical experimentation, the ethics and efficacy of extraordinary or hazardous medical interventions, and the ethics and efficacy even of continued routine medical interventions. In addition, end-of-life often touches upon rationing and the allocation of resources in hospitals and national medical systems. Such decisions are informed both by technical, medical considerations, economic factors as well as bioethics. In addition, end-of-life treatments are subject to considerations of patient autonomy. "Ultimately, it is still up to patients and their families to determine when to pursue aggressive treatment or withdraw life support."

“I think people think DNR means give up. They think DNR and hospice means you’re quitting. It’s more about accepting and embracing the next phase of life, even if it’s death. DNR does not mean do not treat and it does not mean do not care. It just means do not resuscitate by giving CPR, electric shocks or medications to restart the heart. If things go badly, there is a role in certain situations for letting the natural breakdown of the body occur," says Dr. Lauren Jodi Van Scoy, a board-certified internist who has spent hundreds of hours in the intensive care unit, where she has witnessed the manner in which many critically ill patients choose to die, and how sometimes such a decision is mired in upheaval when family members are forced to confront the inevitable.