Patients gave the following reasons for wanting to die:
* future loss of control, 159 patients (77% of the total);
* being a burden, 156 (75%);
* being dependent on others for some or all personal care, 154 (74%);
* loss of dignity, 149 (72%);
* being restricted to bed more than 50% of the time, 119 (57%);
* experiencing severe depression or depressed mood, 114 (55%);
* experiencing severe suffering, 108 (52%);
* experiencing severe physical discomfort other than pain, 103 (50%);
* experiencing severe pain, 73 (35%);
* worried about medical costs, 48 (23%).
Note that pain is the least often given reason for wanting to hasten death. Loss of control and dignity, being a burden and dependent, and being restricted to bed most of the time are the reasons most often given for wanting to hasten death.
However, physicians were least likely to aid those who mentioned non-physical reasons and most likely to aid when physical pain was one of the primary reasons for asking. Physicians declined to give aid-in-dying to 114 of the 156 patients (73%) asking for it. They refused for the following reasons:
* the symptoms were potentially treatable, 26 (23%);
* the patient was depressed, 22 (19%);
* the patient was expected to live longer than six months, 21 (18%);
* the degree of suffering “didn’t justify” the request, 13 (11%);
* the physician didn’t know the patient “well enough,” 6 (5%);
* the physician “felt that physicians should never participate in physician-suicide,” 34 (30%);
* the physician was worried about legal consequences, 17 (15%).
And yet somehow the majority didn't give aid-in-dying to patients, the main reason of which the situation was potentially treatable. Tell me, how do you treat someone whose cerebral cortex has turned to liquid? Flash some sparkling lights at them? Darn that Nobel Prize Committee for not recognizing real 'talent'!!
A JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) study found that 48% of seriously ill patients wanted to "use all available treatments no matter what the chance of recovery," compared with 31% of patients who disagreed,
also found that among physicians, only 7% agreed with the pro-treatment position, compared to 81% who disagreed.