As a doctor probably one of the last things you’ll be wanting to tell a patient is that they’re going to die, many try to avoid it as much as possible and instead keep on treating. But is this for the patient’s best?
According to recent research only a third of all terminally ill patients had end-of-life care discussed, the others do not get the direct talk from their doctors and continue to be on treated till on their death bed.
These talks in contrary to what you might think being told that you’re going to die doesn’t increase the risk of depression according to the research. Most likely the people even when not having gotten a straight answer deep down these patients are aware themselves already I think, passing on the talk will not change much there.
Doing the talk though will allow them to be better informed about their options and give them an oportunity to tackle the situation realistically and make the best of the time they have left, rather than spending their last weeks or months going in-and-out of hospitals, lying there for weeks and hooked up to respirators.
According to the research done the figures amongst the patients which had the talk in regards to that were 3 times as low.
