Outcomes of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation in the Elderly

CPR or DNR? End-of-life decision in Korean cancer patients: a single center’s experience

“…Several influencing factors exist [6][7][8], the most important of which are disease entity and patient's age [9][10][11][12][13][14]. It was suggested in several studies that age is an important determinant of survival after CPR, whereas in many studies the poorer outcome was attributed to concomitant disease rather than age itself.…”

Survival in cancer patients after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

“…Murphy et al reported poorer survival after outpatient CPR in patients with medical diseases such as severe anemia or decreased functional status than in patients without such diseases [16]. In this study of 244 elderly patients who had out-of-hospital CPR, less than 1% of the patients survived to discharge from the hospital.…”

Judgments of futility: What should ethics committees be thinking about?

“…One recent study concluded that CPR was futile for an unwitnessed arrest, for example, and that it should be considered "experimental treatment" in nursing homes (3). Despite such evidence, most hospitals and nursing homes have policies that require the patient or her surrogate to refuse CPR, even if the physician believes CPR should not be performed.…”

“…The futility question has arisen in the context of four distinct issues: [1] assertions about fact-value distinctions, [2] the anomaly of DNR orders, [3] the assertion of patient autonomy as the primary value in health care, and [4] the increasing concern about health care costs. A satisfactory resolution to conflicts about what is to be done with physicians' judgments of futility may require that each of these contexts be appropriately addressed.…”