Changing minds: Dementia alters advance directive equation.Dementia alters advance directive equation A NEW UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA (body, education) University of Minnesota - The home of Gopher. http://umn.edu/. Address: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. STUDY of 84 cognitively intact seniors makes a case to include dementia in advance directives planning. Most of the respondents said during in-person interviews that they would not want CPR Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) Definition Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a procedure to support and maintain breathing and circulation for a person who has stopped breathing (respiratory arrest) and/or whose heart has stopped (cardiac , a respirator respirator /res·pi·ra·tor/ (res´pi-ra?ter) ventilator (2). cuirass respirator see under ventilator. , or parenteral parenteral /pa·ren·ter·al/ (pah-ren´ter-al) not through the alimentary canal, but rather by injection through some other route, as subcutaneous, intramuscular, etc. par·en·ter·al adj. 1. or enteral enteral /en·ter·al/ (en´ter'l) enteric. en·ter·al adj. 1. Within or by way of the intestine, as distinguished from parenteral. 2. Enteric. tube nutrition if they had developed any level of dementia. Stephen McConnell, PhD, vice president of program and public policy for the Alzheimer's Association, considers the study a wake-up call to families to plan now and check in periodically to see if a loved one's preferences have changed. "This is something that should be discussed periodically as we age, including at the early stages of Alzheimer's," he says. "Many people want to be kept comfortable, but not alive indefinitely." McConnell adds that previous studies on the subject focused on physical ailments. This quantifies how people feel about dementia, he says. The study, from the September/October 1999 issue of the Archives of Family Medicine, is available at [www.ama-assn.org/family]. |
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