Elderly and health care

[BigRedBuster]

I didn't think this fit into any other health care thread so I'm making one on it's own.

 

I have been thinking about this for a long time since my wife and I both have elderly parents and we are helping them go through this time in their lives.

 

My parents are still fairly healthy in their late 70s early 80s. My Dad still goes to work every day (not saying he does much while there) and my mom still takes care of the yard and home. But, they are starting to have health issues here and there.

 

My wife's parents are both in different types of assisted living. My MIL has Alzheimer's and is basically totally gone other than sit there with a heart beat. My FIL can not get around or do anything for himself other than eat and watch TV.

 

Meanwhile, the health care industry claims life expectancy is now at 79 years old. The health care industry is obviously proud of this.

 

 

Most people still retire sometime in their 60s. The retirement industry claims we need to be saving huge amounts of money while we are living our active lives preparing for all these years we will not be working.

 

Honestly, I look at my wife's parents and my parents and wonder why we work so hard to extend our lives more and more. It is a HUGE industry to house, feed, take care of our elderly who really don't have a life. We build these extremely expensive facilities to do nothing but warehouse bodies that still have heart beats.

 

Meanwhile, the facilities these people are warehoused in are EXTREMELY expensive and most of the time basically takes up every cent of assets these people have saved their entire lives. Now, one way to look at it is that this is what that savings is for. I guess that's true. However, these people sit on these assets while they have the health to enjoy it only to pay it out to these facilities when they are completely helpless.

 

This all leaves me with questions in my head about morality of this issue. I remember when I worked in health care in college and my hospital was doing open heart surgeries sometimes on people in their 80s. My aunt just had a valve replaced and she is in her mid 80s. The doctor actually told her she is on the young side of people who get that particular surgery. REALLY????

 

Now, having elderly parents, I fully understand the feelings of..."well, we want to do what ever we can to keep them around".

 

Is extending life expectancy more and more really a good thing?

 

I did a quick google search and couldn't find this. But, I would like to know if the age of people entering assisted living is increasing at the same rate as the life expectancy. In other words, are people really living longer enjoyable lives? Or, is that part of our lives staying the same but we are spending more time in a crappy facility somewhere being spoon fed jello?

 

Thoughts???

 

[BigRedBuster]

This shows how health care expenditures are distributed throughout your typical life.

 

[carlfense]

I'm with you. We need to be a lot more concerned about quality of life than we are about quantity of life.

 

This is why I try to encourage everyone I know to have a living will.

[LukeinNE]

Elder care is a particularly touchy aspect of health care. It's always a life and death issue, just with them, the "death" part is always more of an immediate consideration. I've had two grandparents die in the past 20 months. In one case, it was a series of strokes and broken hips that turned my 80 year old, basketball-playing grandpa into a wheelchair-bound old man who had trouble eating on his own. That went on for 6 years until he finally passed away in 2012. For my grandma, it was a single, devastating stroke that basically rendered her paralyzed and on a feeding tube for her last six weeks.

 

In both cases, hundreds of thousands (possibly into the millions, for all I know) of dollars were poured into keeping them alive in their miserable states, with no hope of an eventual recovery. Objectively, was this a good use of resources? No, not really. But they were human beings, and we instinctively - both for ourselves and for the dying - fight the battle against death to the very end, even when we know it's in vain. I can't even begin to wrestle with the moral questions surrounding this issue and what, if anything should be done to how we view it.

 

The other issue is the cost of nursing home care. Frankly, even though its prohibitively expensive, this needs to be folded into Medicare. I have heard nightmare stories about entire farms being sold off to pay for someone's care in a nursing home, leaving nothing to pass down to children, which is a tragedy. In our case (like most others in our position do) we were able to put the bulk of my grandparents' estate into a trust, which, after 5 years of self-funded nursing home care, can't be touched by the government when the non-trust assets are exhausted and Medicaid is asked to take over payment. Medicaid covers most nursing home residents anyway, so we might as well shift the burden to Medicare and make it part of the national retirement safety net.

[Abdullah the Butcher]

I don't plan on living past 65, just doesn't seem to be much of a point unless you get lucky and managed to stay in good health.

[BigRedBuster]

I don't plan on living past 65, just doesn't seem to be much of a point unless you get lucky and managed to stay in good health.

Unfortunately, unless you take care of things yourself at 65, you don't have much of a choice in the matter.

[irafreak]

I don't understand. What should we do? Execute people at a certain age because it costs family and the government money? The government takes care of plenty of 20 year olds that do nothing but sit around without work. I'm inclined to believe the elderly have earned the right for someone to care for them. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't understand what the complaint is.

[BigRedBuster]

I don't understand. What should we do? Execute people at a certain age because it costs family and the government money? The government takes care of plenty of 20 year olds that do nothing but sit around without work. I'm inclined to believe the elderly have earned the right for someone to care for them. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't understand what the complaint is.

You are totally missing the point of my original post.

 

Yes, they have earned the right for us to take care of them.

 

My point was, is it humane to extend their lives for them only to sit in some facility pooping themselves and staring at a wall meanwhile, the industries that run those facilities make huge amounts of money off of it?

 

The thoughts that caused me to write the OP is that it is really an unbelievable situation if you have loved ones in the system.

 

I don't know the answer other than what Carl stated. We need to be looking at not just extending lives but extending quality of life. If we aren't doing that, I have no idea how we can support research and development into extending life without quality only to have these people end up like they are.

[irafreak]

How can we make these decisions for others? These companies can make tons of money off the elderly but how is that different than any other line of work? I still am missing the point. You're upset that a business profits off a need?

[carlfense]

How can we make these decisions for others? These companies can make tons of money off the elderly but how is that different than any other line of work? I still am missing the point. You're upset that a business profits off a need?

One good idea would be to strongly encourage and/or fund end-of-life counseling. (You may remember a certain campaign of lies about the issue . . . DEATH PANELS!)

 

It can be a truly valuable service. For example, I wonder what percentage of people think of CPR like it is portrayed on TV and in movies?

[sd'sker]

just do a quick google search of "how doctors die." you will see a lot of articles about docs who are dnr (even including cpr).

[carlfense]

just do a quick google search of "how doctors die." you will see a lot of articles about docs who are dnr (even including cpr).

Yep.

[carlfense]

Research shows that most Americans do not die well, which is to say they do not die the way they say they want to — at home, surrounded by the people who love them. According to data from Medicare, only a third of patients die this way. More than 50 percent spend their final days in hospitals, often in intensive care units, tethered to machines and feeding tubes, or in nursing homes.

 

There is no statistical proof that doctors enjoy a better quality of life before death than the rest of us. But research indicates they are better planners. An often-cited study, published in 2003, of physicians who had been medical students at Johns Hopkins University found that they were more likely than the general public to have created advance directives, or living wills, which lay out specific plans for care if a patient is unable to make decisions. Of the 765 doctors studied, 64 percent had advance directives, compared with about 47 percent for American adults over 40.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/your-money/how-doctors-die.html?pagewanted=all

[BigRedBuster]

How can we make these decisions for others? These companies can make tons of money off the elderly but how is that different than any other line of work? I still am missing the point. You're upset that a business profits off a need?

Yes, you are.

[True2tRA]

I had a runny nose. Might be some allergies acting up. Death panel decides tomorrow if I'm worth saving. sh#t you guys, I'm scared.