Between Life and Death

by Between Life

  13 Frédéric Pochard, Eli Azoulay, et al., “Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Family Members of Intensive Care Unit Patients: Ethical Hypothesis Regarding Decision-Making Capacity,” Critical Care Medicine 29, no. 10 (2001): 1893–97; Eli Azoulay, Frédéric Pochard, et al., “Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Family Members of Intensive Care Unit Patients,” American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 171, no. 9 (2005): 987–94; Mark D. Siegel, Earle Hayes, et al., “Psychiatric Illness in the Next of Kin of Patients Who Die in the Intensive Care Unit,” Critical Care Medicine 36, no. 6 (2008): 1722–28.

  Chapter 5: Mechanical Ventilation

  1 Jaya K. Rao, Lynda A. Anderson, Feng-Chang Lin, and Jeffrey P. Laux, “Completion of Advance Directives Among U.S. Consumers,” American Journal of Preventative Medicine 46, no 1 (2014): 65–70.

  2 Selected content from this chapter was adapted from my article “The Breath of Life,” Desiring God website, December 14, 2016, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-breath-of-life. Used with permission.

  3 Armando Rotondi, Lakshmipathi Chelluri, et al., “Patients’ Recollections of Stressful Experiences While Receiving Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation in an Intensive Care Unit,” Critical Care Medicine 30, no. 4 (2002): 746–52.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Ibid. See also Jill L. Guttormson, Karin Lindstrom Bremer, and Rachel M. Jones, “‘Not Being Able to Talk Was Horrid’: A Descriptive, Correlational Study of Communication During Mechanical Ventilation,” Intensive and Critical Care Nursing 31 (2015): 180.

  6 Ibid., 179–86.

  7 Michael Klompas, Richard Branson, et al., “Strategies to Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in Acute Care Hospitals: 2014 Update,” Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology 35, no. 8 (2014): 915–36.

  8 C. G. Adair, S. P. Gorman, et al., “Implications of Endotracheal Tube Biofilm for Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia,” Intensive Care Medicine 25, no. 10 (1999): 1072–76.

  9 Jean-Marc Tadié, Eva Behm, et al., “Post-Intubation Laryngeal Injuries and Extubation Failure: A Fiberoptic Endoscopic Study,” Intensive Care Medicine 36, no. 6 (2010): 991–98.

  10 American Thoracic Society, European Respiratory Society, et al., “International Consensus Conference in Intensive Care Medicine: Noninvasive Positive Pressure Ventilation in Acute Respiratory Failure,” American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 163, no. 1 (2001): 283–91.

  11 Miquel Ferrer and Antoni Torres, “Noninvasive Ventilation for Acute Respiratory Failure,” Current Opinion in Critical Care 21, no. 1 (2015): 1–6.

  12 Alexandre Demoule, Emmanuelle Girou, et al., “Benefits and Risks of Success or Failure of Noninvasive Ventilation,” Intensive Care Medicine 32, no. 11 (2006): 1756–65.

  Chapter 6: Cardiovascular Support

  1 Katie Scales, “Arterial Catheters: Indications, Insertion, and Use in Critical Care,” British Journal of Nursing 19 (2010): S16–S21.

  2 Ibid.

  3 David C. McGee and Michael K. Gould, “Preventing Complications of Central Venous Catheterization,” New England Journal of Medicine 348, no. 12 (2003): 1123–33; Lewis A. Eisen, Mangala Narasimhan, et al., “Mechanical Complications of Central Venous Catheters,” Journal of Intensive Care Medicine 21, no. 1 (2006): 40–46.

  4 Sheldon A. Magder, “The Highs and Lows of Blood Pressure: Toward Meaningful Clinical Targets in Patients with Shock,” Critical Care Medicine 42, no. 5 (2014): 1241–51.

  Chapter 7: Artificially Administered Nutrition

  1 Joshua E. Van de Vathorst Perry, Larry R. Churchill, and Howard S. Kirshner, “The Terri Schiavo Case: Legal, Ethical, and Medical Perspectives,” Annals of Internal Medicine 143, no. 10 (2005): 744–48.

  2 Michael P. Casaer and Greet Van Den Berge, “Nutrition in the Acute Phase of Critical Illness,” New England Journal of Medicine 370, no. 25 (2014): 1227–36.

  3 Casaer et al., “Nutrition,” 1227.

  4 Stéphane Villet, René L. Chiolero, et al., “Negative Impact of Hypocaloric Feeding and Energy Balance on Clinical Outcomes in ICU Patients,” Clinical Nutrition 24, no. 4 (2005): 502–9; Lewis Rubinson, Gregory B. Diette, et al., “Low Caloric Intake Is Associated with Nosocomial Bloodstream Infections in Patients in the Medical Intensive Care Unit,” Critical Care Medicine 32, no. 2 (2004): 350–57. Cathy Alberda, Leah Gramlich, et al., “The Relationship between Nutritional Intake and Clinical Outcomes in Critically Ill Patients: Results of an International Multicenter Observational Study,” Intensive Care Medicine 35, no. 10 (2009): 1728–37.

  5 William N. Baskin, “Acute Complications Associated with Bedside Placement of Feeding Tubes,” Nutrition in Clinical Practice 21, no. 1 (2006): 40–55.

  6 Stephen A. McClave, Mark T. DeMeo, et al., “North American Summit on Aspiration in the Critically Ill Patient: Consensus Statement,” Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition 26, suppl. 6 (2002): S80–85.

  7 Vivian Christine Luft, Mariur Gomes Beghetto, et al., “Role of Enteral Nutrition in the Incidence of Diarrhea Among Hospitalized Adult Patients,” Nutrition 24, no. 6 (2008): 528–35; Beth E. Taylor, Stephen A. McClave, et al., “Guidelines for the Provision and Assessment of Nutrition Support Therapy in the Adult Critically Ill Patient: Society for Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.),” Critical Care Medicine 44, no. 2 (2016): 390–438.

  8 Claudio A. R. Gomes Jr., Regis B. Andriolo, et al., “Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Versus Nasogastric Tube Feeding for Adults with Swallowing Disturbances,” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 5, article no. CD008096 (2015), 15.

  9 Ibid., 16. See also Baskin et al., “Acute Complications,” 45.

  10 Baskin et al., “Acute Complications,” 46.

  11 Taylor et al., “Nutrition Support Therapy,” 396–97.

  12 Ibid., 406–8.

  13 Cynthia M. A. Geppert, Maria R. Andrews, and Mary Ellen Druyan, “Ethical Issues in Artificial Nutrition and Hydration: A Review,” Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition 34, no. 1 (2010): 79–88; Suzanne van de Vathorst, “Artificial Nutrition at the End of Life: Ethical Issues,” Best Practices and Research, Clinical Gastroenterology 28, no. 2 (2014): 247–53; Nobuhisa Nakajima, Yoshinobu Hata, and Kenju Kusumuto, “A Clinical Study on the Influence of Hydration Volume on the Signs of Terminally Ill Cancer Patients with Abdominal Malignancies,” Journal of Palliative Medicine 16, no. 2 (2013): 185–89.

  14 Geppert et al., “Ethical Issues in Artificial Nutrition,” 83–84; Van de Vathorst, “Artificial Nutrition at the End of Life,” 247–49.

  15 Nobuhisa et al., “Hydration Volume,” 185–89.

  16 American Geriatrics Society Ethics Committee and Clinical Practice and Models of Care Committee, “American Geriatrics Society Feeding Tubes in Advanced Dementia Position Statement,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 62, no. 8 (2014): 1590–93; Robert E. Lam and Peter J. Lam, “Nutrition in Dementia,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 186, no. 17 (2014): 1319.

  17 Joan M. Teno, Pedro L. Gozalo, et al., “Does Feeding Tube Insertion and Its Timing Improve Survival?” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 60, no. 10 (2012): 1918–21; Christopher M. Callahan, Kathy M. Haag, et al., “Outcomes of Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Among Older Adults in a Community Setting,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 48, no. 9 (2000): 1048–54; Joan M. Teno, Pedro Gozalo, et al., “Feeding Tubes and the Prevention or Healing of Pressure Ulcers,” Archives of Internal Medicine 172, no. 9 (2012): 697–701.

  18 Jane L. Givens, Kevin Selby, et al., “Hospital Transfers of Nursing Home Residents with Dementia,” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 60, no. 5 (2012): 905–9.

  Chapter 8: Dialysis

  1 Paul M. Palevsky, Jane Hongyuan Zhang, et al., “Intensity of Renal Support in Critically Ill Patient with Acute Kidney Injury,” New England Journal of Medicine 359, no. 1 (2008): 7–20; Danilo Fliser, Maurice Laville, et al., “A European Best Practice (ERBP) Position Statement
on the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Clincial Practice Guidelines on Acute Kidney Injury, Part 1: Definitions, Conservative Management and Contrast-Induced Nephropathy,” Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 27, no. 12 (2012): 4263–72.

  2 Ibid., 7–20.

  3 Paula Dennen, Ivor S. Douglas, and Robert Anderson, “Acute Kidney Injury in the Intensive Care Unit: An Update and Primer for the Intensivist,” Critical Care Medicine 38, no. 1 (2010): 261–75.

  4 Allan J. Collins, Robert N. Foley, et al., “Excerpts from the United States Renal Data System 2009 Annual Data Report: Atlas of End-Stage Renal Disease in the United States,” American Journal of Kidney Diseases 55, suppl. 1 (2010): S1.

  5 Pietro Ravani, Suetonia C. Palmer, et al., “Associations Between Hemodialysis Access Type and Clinical Outcomes: A Systematic Review,” Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 24, no. 3 (2013): 465–73.

  6 Stephen D. Weisbord, “Symptoms and Their Correlates in Chronic Kidney Disease,” Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease 14, no. 4 (2007): 319–27.

  7 Ibid.

  8 Ibid.

  9 Jonathan Himmelfarb and T. Alp Ikizler, “Hemodialysis,” New England Journal of Medicine 363, no. 19 (2010): 1839; Alvin H. Moss, “Revised Dialysis Clinical Practice Guideline Promotes More Informed Decision-Making,” Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 5, no. 12 (2010): 2380.

  10 Himmelfarb et al., “Hemodialysis,” 1839–40.

  11 Moss, “Clinical Practice Guideline,” 2380–83.

  12 Ibid.

  13 Ibid.

  14 Daisy J. A. Janssen, Martijn A. Spruit, et al., “Insight into Advance Care Planning for Patients on Dialysis,” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 45, no. 1 (2013): 104–13.

  15 Manjula Kurella Tamura, Kenneth E. Covinsky, et al., “Functional Status of Elderly Adults Before and After Initiation of Dialysis,” New England Journal of Medicine 361, no. 16 (2009): 1539–47.

  16 Moss, “Clinical Practice Guideline,” 2380–83.

  Chapter 9: Brain Injury

  1 Content from this chapter was adapted from my article “Words We Dread to Hear: Coma, Brain Death, and Christian Hope,” Desiring God website, November 21, 2016, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/words-we-dread-to-hear. Used with permission.

  2 James L. Bernat, “The Natural History of Chronic Disorders of Consciousness,” Neurology 75, no. 3 (2010): 206–7.

  3 Ibid., 206.

  4 Calixto Machado, Julius Kerein, et al., “The Concept of Brain Death Did Not Evolve to Benefit Organ Transplants,” Journal of Medical Ethics 33, no. 4 (2007): 197–200.

  5 Martin Smith, “Physiologic Changes During Brain Stem Death—Lessons for Management of the Organ Donor,” The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation 23, no. 9 (2004): S217–22.

  6 The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Law, “Determination of Death Act Summary,” Uniform Law Commission, accessed January 8, 2018, http://www.uniformlaws.org/ActSummary.aspx?title=Determination%20of%20Death%20Act.

  7 Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology, “Practice Parameters for Determining Brain Death in Adults,” Neurology 45, no. 5 (1995): 1012–14.

  8 Christian Medical and Dental Association House of Representatives, “Death Ethics Statement,” Christian Medical and Dental Association (2004), accessed January 8, 2018, https://www.cmda.org/resources/publication/death-ethics-statement.

  9 Pope John Paul II, “Address of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Eighteenth International Congress of the Transplantation Society,” Vatican, August 29, 2000, accessed January 8, 2018, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2000/jul-sep/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000829_transplants.html.

  10 Shivani Ghoshal and David M. Greer, “Why Is Diagnosing Brain Death So Confusing?” Current Opinion in Critical Care 21, no. 2 (2015): 107–12.

  Chapter 10: Comfort Measures and Hospice

  1 Matthieu Schmidt and Elie Azoulay, “Having a Loved One in the ICU: The Forgotten Family,” Current Opinion in Critical Care 18, no. 5 (2012): 540–47.

  2 Ziad Obermeyer, Maggie Makar, et al., “Association Between the Medicare Hospice Benefit and Health Care Utilization and Costs for Patients with Poor-Prognosis Cancer,” Journal of the American Medical Association 312, no. 18 (2014): 1888–96.

  3 Stephen R. Connor, Bruce Pyenson, et al., “Comparing Hospice and Nonhospice Patient Survival among Patients Who Die within a Three-Year Window,” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 33, no. 3 (2007): 238–46; Akiko M. Saito, Mary Beth Landrum, et al., “Hospice Care and Survival among Elderly Patients with Lung Cancer,” Journal of Palliative Medicine 14, no. 8 (2011): 929–39.

  4 Alexi A. Wright, Nancy L. Keating, et al., “Place of Death: Correlation with Quality of Life in Patients with Cancer and Predictors of Bereaved Caregivers’ Mental Health,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 28, no. 29 (2010): 4457–64.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Ellen P. McCarthy, Risa B. Burns, et al., “Hospice Use Among Medicare Managed Care and Fee-for-Service Patients Dying with Cancer,” Journal of the American Medical Association 289, no. 17 (2003): 2238–45.

  7 National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, “Facts and Figures: Hospice Care in America,” 2016 ed. (October 2017), https://www.nhpco.org/sites/default/files/public/Statistics_Research/2016_Facts_Figures.pdf.

  8 Erica R. Schockett, Joan M. Teno, et al., “Late Referral to Hospice and Bereaved Family Member Perception of Quality of End-of-Life Care,” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 30, no. 5 (2003): 400–407; Pallavi Kumar, Alexi A. Wright, et al., “Family Perspectives on Hospice Care Experiences of Patients with Cancer,” Journal of Clinical Oncology 35, no. 4 (2017): 432–39.

  9 Liz Hamel, Bryan Wu, and Mollyann Brodie, “Views and Experiences with End-of-Life Medical Care in the U.S.,” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (April 2017), accessed January 4, 2018, http://files.kff.org/attachment

  10 Paula Lusardi, Paul Jodka, et al., “The Going Home Initiative: Getting Critical Care Patients Home with Hospice,” Critical Care Nurse 31, no. 5 (2011): 46.

  11 Thomas W. DeCato, Ruth A. Engelberg, et al., “Hospital Variation and Temporal Trends in Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care in the ICU,” Critical Care Medicine 14, no. 6 (2013): 1405–11.

  12 Leslie P. Scheunemann, Michelle McDevitt, et al., “Randomized, Controlled Trials of Interventions to Improve Communication in Intensive Care: A Systematic Review,” Chest 139, no. 3 (2011): 543–54; Ciarán T. Bradley and Karen J. Brasel, “Developing Guidelines That Identify Patients Who Would Benefit from Palliative Care Services in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit,” Critical Care Medicine 37, no. 3 (2009): 946–50.

  13 Craig D. Blinderman and J. Andrew Billings, “Comfort Care for Patients Dying in the Hospital,” New England Journal of Medicine 373, no. 26 (2015): 2549–61.

  Chapter 11: The Dangers of Physician-Assisted Suicide

  1 United States Census Bureau, Population Division, “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States: Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016,” United States Census Bureau (December 2016), accessed January 8, 2018, https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/tables/2010-2016/state/totals/nst-est2016-01.xlsx.

  2 Oregon Health Authority Public Health Division, Center for Health Statistics, “Oregon Death with Dignity Act: Data Summary 2016,” Oregon.gov (February 10, 2017), accessed January 8, 2018, http://www.oregon.gov/oha/ph/providerpartnerresources/evaluationresearch/deathwithdignityact/Documents/year19.pdf.

  3 Dr. Jack Kevorkian was an American pathologist who staunchly advocated for euthanasia in the 1980s and 1990s. He personally assisted in the deaths of over one hundred people, and in 1999 was convicted of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a patient with amytrophic lateral sclerosis.

  4 Compassion and Choices, “About Compassion and Choices” (2016), accessed January 8, 2018, https://www.compassionandchoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Abo
ut-Compassion-and-Choices-Brochure-FINAL-4.05.16-Approved-for-Public-Distribution.pdf.

  5 Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Bregje D. Onwuteaka-Philipsen, et al., “Attitudes and Practices of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States,” Journal of the American Medical Association 316, no. 1 (2016): 79–90.

  6 American Medical Association, “Chapter 5: Opinions on Caring for Patients at the End of Life,” American Medical Association Principles of Ethics (2016), accessed January 8, 2018, https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/default/files/media-browser/code-of-medical-ethics-chapter-5.pdf.

  7 Ewan C. Goligher, E. Wesley Ely, et al., “Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the ICU: A Dialogue on Core Ethical Issues,” Critical Care Medicine 46, no. 2 (2017): 149–55.

  8 Emaniel et al., “Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide,” 81.

  9 Ibid.

  10 Charles Blanke, Michael LeBlanc, and Dawn Hershman, “Characterizing Eighteen Years of the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon,” Journal of the American Medical Association Oncology 3, no. 10 (2017): 1403–6.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Lois A. Bowers, “Atul Gawande: Senior Living Vital to Person-Centered Care,” McKnight’s Senior Living (June 23, 2016), accessed January 8, 2018, http://www.mcknightsseniorliving.com/news/atul-gawande-senior-living-vital-to-person-centered-care/article/505342/.

  Chapter 12: Advance Care Planning

  Maria J. Silveira, Scott Y. H. Kim, and Kenneth M. Langa, “Advance Directives and Outcomes of Surrogate Decision Making Before Death,” New England Journal of Medicine 362, no. 13 (2010): 1211–18.

  2 Ibid. See also Karen M. Detering, Andrew D. Hancock, et al., “The Impact of Advance Care Planning on End of Life Care in Elderly Patients: Randomised Controlled Trial,” British Medical Journal 34, no. c1345 (2010): 1–9; Alexi A. Wright, Baohui Zhang, et al., “Associations Between End-of-Life Discussions, Patient Mental Health, Medical Care Near Death, and Caregiver Bereavement Adjustment,” Journal of the American Medical Association 300, no. 14 (2008): 1665–73.

  3 Detering et al., “The Impact of Advance Care Planning,” 1–9.