For a healthier happier end of your life

I am concerned with helping people have long and healthy lives, and reducing medical expenses. I recommend reading a great article called Letting go, by Atul Gawande, M.D. in the New Yorker of Aug. 2, 2010. The article describes how physicians fail to discuss end of life issues even with terminally ill patients. It describes how LaCrosse, WI encourages those conversations. Their end of life medical costs are less than half the national average, they survive longer than most people, and their surviving relatives have substantially lower rates of depression after their loved ones die. The four key quetions to discuss are:

Do you want to be resusitated if your heart stops?
Do you want aggressive treatments like mechanical ventilation?
Do you want antibiotics?
Do you want intravenous feeding?

The author also describes the incredible success of Hospice in dealing appropriately so that the end of life is a time of living with dignity, surrounded by loved ones, rather than isolated in an ER mentally deranged on medications. I recommend the article to everyone, especially people connected with medicine or elderly.