Copyrighted Image? DMCA | Implanted defibrillators can save lives, shocking a heart beating wildly out of sync back to a regular rhythm. But they can also make a dying patient's last hours agonizing, delivering shock after shock to a heart that is failing. There's a simple solution: Advise patients who are nearing their last months, days, or hours to turn off the implanted cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD -- or at least explain what can happen if they don't, a new report suggests. This course seems especially clear when a patient is on death's door and has signed orders telling medical personnel not to use heroic measures if heart or lungs stop working. Russo started looking into the subject of ICDs at the end of life when he read a horrifying report describing the tortured death of a hospice patient who "suffered 33 shocks as he lay dying in his wife's arms." |
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At vitals.msnbc.msn.com
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