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Got any stats, references to back that up?

Just a pamphlet and some googling I did during some personal experience with it. It was a real eye-opener as I was completely unaware of how it works nowadays and one learns it sitting in the room. I, like many Americans, tend to want to never give up especially when we are young, least of all on loved ones. I guess as we mature we come to accept all phases of life.

The only thing that concerned me was, again, like most people, when one considers the possibility of recovery and how that is really kind of written off, as the pamphlet told me. The drugs administered reduce pain, and the science apparently shows that the patient under these drugs tends to surrender and this hastens the process much more than no care, where the body will continue to try to fight on in all sorts of ways that can be very painful. Patients tend to come in communicative and all that stops very quickly. From what I've read, IMHO, it's getting into a gray area that starts sounding Kevorkian. I completely understand this with pets and do not want them to suffer, but with people it is obviously much more unsettling.

It's just one of those things, I guess. All I can say is a word to the wise, it's something to read up on and think about before you're in the situation, because it's a fairly irreversible decision.