Study Suggests Doctors Overlook Effects Of Implanted Heart Defibrillators In Dying Patients

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(Medical News Today) The Associated Press reports that heart defibrillators implanted in a patient's chest may disrupt a quiet death, but doctors and relatives of people dying of non-heart related diseases often don't consider that issue. "It's not unusual for health professionals to avoid the topic, says Dr. Nathan Goldstein of New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center. His research, published this month in Annals of Internal Medicine, suggests most hospices - expert in end-of-life care - aren't making defibrillator decisions part of their routine." The devices can cause "painful, repeated shocks" in some patients if they are not turned-off. "Nearly 60 percent of hospices he examined had at least one patient shocked within the past year, sometimes multiple times at once. Yet just one in 20 hospices had a method even to identify who harbored the implant when they entered the program. But with more than 100,000 implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, or ICDs, inserted every year, more and more families ... will face the question" (Neergaard, 3/15).
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