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Dignity-Conserving Care at the End of Life
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To the Editor: Dr Chochinov's article1 on dignity-conserving care at the end of life provides
a model for how people should treat each other. Its elements, which generally
can be found in hospice care, enable most patients to die with dignity.
Unfortunately, this model is not practiced in most hospital or nursing
home settings, and is demanding for the average caregiver. Still, if most
individuals with a terminal illness were treated this way, the incentive to
end their lives would be greatly reduced. Nonetheless, there would still be
other reasons arising from suffering, physical deterioration, and personal
choice.
Those of us who defend a person's right to choose a peaceful, quick,
and certain death, preferably with the help of a physician, do not mean to
imply that a hastened death is the only way to achieve dignity at the end
of life. But the dignity of all individuals is minimized . . . [Full Text of this Article]
RELATED ARTICLE
Depression, Hopelessness, and Desire for Hastened Death in Terminally Ill Patients With Cancer
William Breitbart, Barry Rosenfeld, Hayley Pessin, Monique Kaim, Julie Funesti-Esch, Michele Galietta, Christian J. Nelson, and Robert Brescia
JAMA. 2000;284(22):2907-2911.
ABSTRACT
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