The ultimate goals of maintaining vital functions depend on the specific situation of the patient. Typically, life support is used to sustain life while the underlying injury or disease is treated or assessed for prognosis. Life support techniques can also be applied indefinitely if the underlying medical condition cannot be corrected, but a reasonable quality of life can still be expected. In previous case law of 1988, the courts held that the decision to refuse or discontinue treatment rested with the physician, not the courts. However, the Manitoba court ruled that, given the paucity of related cases and the fact that none of them considered the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it would hear the case. Previous courts had ruled that physicians should not be required by law to provide treatments they did not believe the patient would want. Otherwise, the doctor would act against his conscience and his duty as a doctor. However, if the patient disagrees, they can sue the doctor for negligence. To avoid this, Justice Beard ruled in favour of the patient. Resuscitation is not controversial and requires only CPR, performed by the first qualified person on site. Although resuscitation was an ethical dilemma, it was insignificant because the doctor had already approved resuscitation several months ago.
Unlike related cases where patients were in a coma, Ms. Sawatzky provided evidence that her husband was able to communicate and believed he could recover, but the physician disagreed. The uncertainty about recovery prompted the court to order the physician to authorize resuscitation. When judgments deal with end-of-life issues, the question is, “Is the rest of life a benefit to this person?” rather than “Is it possible to treat this person?” These questions are beyond the scope of the medical profession and can be answered philosophically or religiously, which also strengthens our sense of justice. Both philosophy and religion value life as a fundamental human right, rather than the ability to contribute to society, and consciously embrace all human beings. Mr. Sawatzky fell under the umbrella, so the judge ruled in his favour. [11] If for any reason these systems stop working, you need life support: It`s important to remember that it`s the underlying condition, not the withdrawal of life support, that actually causes a person`s death, and doctors will do everything they can to keep your loved one comfortable. If someone is unconscious or in poor health, doctors and family members decide when to stop maintaining vital functions. This is a difficult decision, especially if the sick person has not yet discussed their end-of-life wishes with their family. Doctors encourage family members to focus on what they think their loved one would want. Life Support: 1.
A therapy or device designed to sustain a person`s life when an essential body system is not. Maintenance of vital functions may include, for example, enteric (tube) nutrition, complete parenteral nutrition, mechanical ventilation, pacemaker, defibrillator, heart-lung machine, or dialysis. 2. Something that sustains life, as in “Earth is the ultimate life support system.” 3. A product, program or company that is supported, as in “Medicare is on life support.” The Airedale NHS Trust vs The Bland case was a decision of the English House of Lords for a comatose 17-year-old survivor of the Hillsborough disaster. He had been artificially fed and hydrogenated for about three years, but he had shown no improvement in his prolonged vegetative state. His parents challenged the maintenance of life-sustaining therapeutic functions in the High Court and sought leave to terminate the maintenance of vital functions for their son. The court ruled that his “existence in a persistent vegetative state is not a benefit to the patient,” but the statement did not cover the innate value of human life. The court interpreted the sanctity of life as applying only if life could continue as the patient would have wanted to live his life.
If the quality of life did not conform to what the patient considered meaningful life, then the sanctity of life did not apply. The accuracy of an agent`s decision on how to treat a patient is affected by what the patient would have wanted for himself. But just because the patient wanted to die doesn`t mean the courts would allow doctors to medically support and kill a patient. This part of the decision was influenced by the Rodriguez case (1993), in which a British Columbia woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was unable to obtain permission to commit suicide. [12] Maintaining vital functions can help you or a loved one in the event of a medical emergency or long-term illness. Maintaining vital functions can be beneficial and support your body until it is ready to take action again. However, sometimes maintaining vital functions prolongs the dying process. It is important to discuss your options with your health care providers and family members. Starting, rejecting, and ending life support are all deeply personal choices. The decision to remove life support usually means that the person dies within hours or days.
The timing depends on the discontinued treatment. People tend to stop breathing and die shortly after turning off a ventilator, although some start breathing on their own. If they don`t ingest fluid, they usually die a few days after a feeding tube is removed, although they can survive up to a week or two. When you think of maintaining vital functions, you may think of a machine or a fan. Although mechanical ventilation is one type, life support refers to any medical procedure that allows your body to function for you. There are different types of life support. “I do not support recognition of same-sex marriage in Florida,” he wrote to Andrew Walther of Sanford. The body is a complex machine.
Many organs and systems are constantly working to keep it healthy. Some features are so important that you can`t live if they stop. If they fail, special medical procedures, commonly known as life maintenance, can keep you alive until your body is ready to pick up the slack. But sometimes the body is unable to return to work. When used quickly in response to a sudden event such as a heart attack or drowning, CPR can save lives. But the success rate is extremely low for people who are at the end of a fatal disease process. Critically ill patients who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation often have a low chance of making a significant recovery and leaving the hospital. There may be different forms of life support and all, several or one of them can be used at the same time, depending on the patient`s needs. The best-known life-sustaining device is a mechanical ventilator that helps patients breathe when a patient`s lungs are too sick to function on their own, or when a patient is too deeply in a coma to breathe effectively. Mechanical ventilation is used to support or replace the function of your lungs. A ventilator called a ventilator (or ventilator) pushes air into your lungs.
The ventilator is attached to a tube that is inserted through the mouth or nose into the airway (trachea). This is called intubation. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a group of treatments used when your heart and/or breathing stops. CPR is used to support your body and restart your heart and breathing. Electric shocks (defibrillation), chest compressions and medications are used to ease circulation and try to restart your heart. Advanced Life Support (ALS) is a vital skill set that goes beyond BLS techniques. ALS emphasizes the importance of consistent, high-quality CPR, in addition to more advanced capabilities. Your doctor may perform ALS during cardiac emergencies. Only health care providers who have more extensive training should practice ALS. In addition to critical medical conditions or lung or heart disease, patients with upper spinal cord injury or disease, or a progressive neurological condition such as Lou Gehrig`s disease, may require long-term or lifelong mechanical ventilation. Some people with long-term mechanical ventilation, especially those with spinal cord problems, may be able to live a quality of life that is important to them.
However, for a patient with a progressive, incurable or untreated disease, mechanical ventilation only prolongs the dying process until another system in the body fails. It can provide oxygen, but it cannot improve the underlying condition.
