Problem Over recent years there have been studies to explain why terminally ill patients wish to die. However, there is a lack of understanding of the importance of a “wish to die”. There is a lack of meaning or reasoning from the patients that “wish to die”. We need a clear distinction of the meaning of a “wish to die” from the patients of the study. Procedures In a qualitative case study, thirty terminally-ill cancer patients, their care givers and relatives were interviewed in a semi-structured setting. The interview took placed in a palliative care ward in the oncology department of a general hospital. The study consists of 116 interviews using a complementary ground theory and interpretive phenomenological approach. Results There were
Diane: A Case of Physician Assisted Suicide. Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established.
Terminally ill patients deserve the right to have a dignified death. These patients should not be forced to suffer and be in agony their lasting days. The terminally ill should have this choice, because it is the only way to end their excruciating pain. These patients don’t have
Anyone can be diagnosed with a terminal illness. It doesn’t matter how healthy you are, who you are, or what you do. Some terminal illnesses you can prevent by avoiding unhealthy habits, eating healthily, exercising regularly and keeping up with vaccinations. However some terminally ill people cannot be helped, their diseases cannot be cured and the only thing possible to help them, besides providing pain relieving medication, is to make them as comfortable as possible while enduring their condition. Many times the pharmaceuticals do not provide the desired pain escape, and cause patients to seek immediate relief in methods such as euthanasia. Euthanasia is the practice of deliberately ending a life in order to alleviate pain and suffering, but is deemed controversial because many various religions believe that their creators are the only ones that should decide when their life’s journey should reach its end. Euthanasia is performed by medical doctors or physicians and is the administration of a fatal dose of a suitable drug to the patient on his or her express request. Although the majority of American states oppose euthanasia, the practice would result in more good as opposed to harm. The patient who is receiving the euthanizing medication would be able to proactively choose their pursuit of happiness, alleviate themselves from all of the built up pain and suffering, relieve the burden they may feel they are upon their family, and die with dignity, which is the most ethical option for vegetative state and terminally ill patients. Euthanasia should remain an alternative to living a slow and painful life for those who are terminally ill, in a vegetative state or would like to end their life with dignity. In addition, t...
If a situation came about where I was terminally ill and the doctors told me that I had just six months to live, I wouldn 't opt to end my life. This is probably because I’m young and I could desperately use those six months to see and do as much as I’d miss for the rest of my life. I’d ask that the doctor give me some medication for pain mediation, and then I’d scrape together whatever energy I had and I’d go travel and live what was left of my life. Even if I didn 't want to travel or I was bedridden, I’d still opt to live the time that I had left for the reasons that it would allow people who are close to me to spend time
Thanks in part to the scientific and technological advances of todays’ society, enhanced medicinal treatment options are helping people battle illnesses and diseases and live longer than ever before. Despite these advances, however, many people with life threatening illnesses have needs and concerns that are unidentified and therefore unmet at the end of life, notes Arnold, Artin, Griffith, Person and Graham (2006, p. 62). They further noted that when these needs and concerns remain unmet, due in part to the failure of providers to correctly evaluate these needs, as well as the patients’ reluctance to discuss them (p. 63, as originally noted by Heaven & Maguire, 1997), a patient’s quality of life may be adversely affected. According to Bosma et al. (2010, p. 84), “Many generalist social work skills regarding counseling, family systems, community resources, and psychosocial assessments are relevant to working with patients and families with terminal illness”, thereby placing social workers in the distinctive position of being able to support and assist clients with end of life decisions and care planning needs. In fact, they further noted that at some point, “most social work practitioners will encounter adults, children, and families who are facing progressive life limiting illness, dying, death, or bereavement” (p. 79).
There is great debate in this country and worldwide over whether or not terminally ill patients who are experiencing great suffering should have the right to choose death. A deep divide amongst the American public exists on the issue. It is extremely important to reach an ethical decision on whether or not terminally ill patients have this right to choose death, since many may be needlessly suffering, if an ethical solution exists.
One of the greatest dangers facing chronic and terminally ill patients is the grey area regarding PAS. In the Netherlands, there are strict criteria for the practice of PAS. Despite such stringencies, the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (1992) found 28% of the PAS cases in the Netherlands did not meet the criteria. The evidence suggests some of the patient’s lives may have ended prematurely or involuntarily. This problem can be addressed via advance directives. These directives would be written by competent individuals explaining their decision to be aided in dying when they are no longer capable of making medical decisions. These interpretations are largely defined by ones morals, understanding of ethics, individual attitudes, religious and cultural values.
I am writing my paper to a group of middle class college students. Majority of who are African American, and a teacher of Asian descent. My class is made up of about twenty student’s ages ranging from 18-33. The majority are females, and only 4 males. Most of the students in my class are from inner city Baltimore, and a couple are out of state. Also, majority of my class are working-class, not many are just students. In addition, we also have students that are also parents.
Pamela Bone, an American author, once said, “I'm not afraid of being dead. I'm just afraid of what you might have to go through to get there.” For terminally ill patients, euthanasia may be a choice for some. Being euthanized would end any suffering a loved one is forced to face while on their deathbed. It gives the patient the option to no longer prolong his or her last breath in agony, but rather under their own wish. It would be selfish to hold onto the relative only because the family does not want them to pass away, especially when the patient wanted to.
The care of patients at the end of their live should be as humane and respectful to help them cope with the accompanying prognosis of the end of their lives. The reality of this situation is that all too often, the care a patient receives at the end of their life is quite different and generally not performed well. The healthcare system of the United States does not perform well within the scope of providing the patient with by all means a distress and pain free palliative or hospice care plan. To often patients do not have a specific plan implemented on how they wish to have their end of life care carried out for them. End of life decisions are frequently left to the decision of family member's or physicians who may not know what the patient needs are beforehand or is not acting in the patient's best wishes. This places the unenviable task of choosing care for the patient instead of the patient having a carefully written out plan on how to carry out their final days. A strategy that can improve the rate of care that patients receive and improve the healthcare system in general would be to have the patient create a end of life care plan with their primary care physician one to two years prior to when the physician feels that the patient is near the end of their life. This would put the decision making power on the patient and it would improve the quality of care the patient receives when they are at the end of their life. By developing a specific care plan, the patient would be in control of their wishes on how they would like their care to be handled when the time of death nears. We can identify strengths and weakness with this strategy and implement changes to the strategy to improve the overall system of care with...
Even though many dispute over the value and usefulness of treatment and care of terminally ill patients, the debate for the most useful care and pain reliever for these patients is the question that most patients, and their families, have to ask themselves daily. Wesley J. Smith suggests that Hospice care for patients with such a horrible illness is a beneficial program and that many patients need to utilize it. Smith also recommends that a valuable care option would be to “allow the terminally ill to enter hospice care without having to give up life-extending or curative treatments”. (Smith 3) With this statement, Smith demonstrates a way that these ill patients can be provided with treatment and also care for the patient’s quality of life.
The purpose of this essay is to analyse various theories on ageing, death, dying, and end of life issues from different perspectives such as: biophysiological theories, psychosocial theories; and taking in consideration the cultural, historical, and religious implications around the aforementioned life stages. One will also discuss important issues relevant to social work practice such as dignity, autonomy, and their relationship with the concept of a successful ageing and a good death. One considers these areas important since they upheld anti-discriminatory practice and may perhaps promote the development of personalised care pathways, as well as fair and justifiable social policies.
Death frightens us. Therefore, acknowledging one’s wish to willingly end his or her life is difficult for the average person to understand. Though we are aware that our days are finite, we live with the false hope that technology may advance by the time we reach the end of our lives to substantially extend them. We live with the delusion of an eternal existence. However, not everyone cringes upon the thought of death. Many elderly people, near death, choose to commit suicide, willingly take one’s own lives, because it is simply accelerating the inevitable. Suicide has a poor social stigma, but it is not always an attempt to “take the easy way out” as many people regard it. It can simply be the decision to end life on a high note. We can simultaneously
Along with palliative care becoming an alternative to euthanasia, a potential argument against euthanasia is that depending on how bad their disease and level of pain is that euthanasia might help them for those cases. It their body’s condition and pain is so severe that euthanasia just might be a good possibility to end their suffering than to help them keep on living a happy life with the depressing results of their condition. It becomes a debate whether to end it or to keep on living for themselves but also for their families. Some physicians believe that is some certain cases that euthanasia might be
“About 83% considered euthanasia as an option for themselves if terminally ill and in pain or having other physical problems” (Roelands & Van den Block, Geurts, Deliens, Cohen, 2015 p 143). With the wish to hasten death, individuals experience “loss of bodily functions, control, and meaning of life the wish to hasten death as a way of putting an end to suffering and regaining some control over one’s life” (Monforte-Roys, Sales, & Balaguer 2015, p 1). By the same token, Fieser (2015, p 3) discusses the “two death theory” which explains the fact that the body goes through two deaths. The first death is the death of the brain leaving the individual in a persistent vegetative state. In addition to the first death, the body goes through a second death, the death of the actual body. Ho and Chantagul (2015, p 255) concluded, those patients who exist in a persistent vegetative state and kept alive by artificial means and those patients while conscious, are incapacitated and in pain, confined to bed and kept alive by artificial means for weeks, months, and years. The life-ending process has been delayed due to pain and suffering of an individual. While the individual has the right to choose when they die, they also have the right to discontinue