The Rate Of Surgical Procedures Increases With Age
In the last year, months, and even week of life, surgery is very common in older people researchers reported Wednesday. This new discovery has brought up the debate of whether surgery is really helpful in one's last years of life. In a 2008 national study published Wednesday, it showed that nearly one out of three people had surgery in the last year of their life and almost one in five had surgery in the last month of their life. Even more shocking, one in ten people had surgery in the last week of life. Those who were 65 had a 38.4 percent chance of having surgery in the last year of their life. For patients over eighty, the chance was 35.3 percent according to the New York Times.
It should be known that the above findings are controversial. Critics say that by merely observing those who died, researchers may obtain a distorted perception of reality. Dr. Peter B. Bach of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center says "Because the patient died, you can't assume that the treatment and therapies were not of value," There are several prominent researchers that believe the total number of operations at the end of one's life was surprising and they did not understand why the surgical procedures were even conducted. Some were necessary to alleviate pain and suffering or to extend life, however they said that doctors often operate to repair something that that will never be fixed in an aging or dying patient.
In other studies, researchers investigated data for Medicare recipients that are 65 and older who had died in 2008. They reported distinct regional differences in surgery at the end of life for these patients. According to the New York Times, regional differences in health care services have been a controversial issue because it is unclear whether they depict accurate variations in a patient needs. These studies addressed a major issue in American medicine according to researchers. Surgery is an expensive and painful thing. Doctors are caught between possibly saving an aging patients life with surgical procedures that may or may not be viable. Studies will continue in the effort to understand the causes and effects of surgeries at the end of one's life. Unfortunately, right now doctors are led down a path of intervention and are focused on something that they think they can fix, when in fact it does not. Studies are not exactly conclusive right now, however researchers along with clinicians have a duty lead patients down the right path.
