[GOPPachyderm]

Consider too that anesthesia can worsen dementia. Is this really wise? I had the same situation where the doc says well maybe a pacemaker would help (but maybe it wouldn’t). So a $10,000 (guesstimate) procedure for my 80-year-old father-in-law that MIGHT help? All paid for by Medicare of course. We declined and he’s doing fine, although his dementia is increasing. We’re paying $5,000 a month for memory care and resources are dwindling.

[Mr. Silverback]

My parents were in a similar situation. My grandmother had been suffering from dementia and was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. The only way to fight it was radiation. She was in her 80s, and my mother said the thing that worried her is that when they gave my grandmother the radiation treatments, she would probably have no idea what was being done to her, and would not retain it for long when it was explained to her.

Sometimes, with the elderly, comfort care is the only reasonable course, because surgery, radiation or chemo become worse than the disease.