Suicide and attempted suicide in the elderly. Should the physician give support to patient's wish to die?

Abstract

Suicide is a major cause of death of older people. The most reason cited by older adults who consider suicide is loneliness. Feeling alone, worthless, helpless and hopeless are symptoms of depression which carries a high risk for suicide. The suicide risk in the elderly depends on the societies, communities and religious beliefs.

On the other hand the patients who believe that their quality of life would be disturbed by the continued treatment, have the right to ask to stop the treatment. The further extention of this issue involves the wish to die and physician-assisted suicide. The physician-assisted suicide raises several ethical questions beside the conflicting roles of physicians in preseving life versus ending suffering. In the Hippocratic oath, physicians swear not to precribe a deadly drug or give advise to a patient that may cause death. Or, nowadays euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have become sources of continuing controversy and are likely to be so far forseeable future.

Once a physician swears to keep the patient alive, is it ethical when he / she administers a lethal dose of medication or another agent to a hopelessly ill or injured patient?

The achivement of modern medicine in terms off technology and treatment, enable physicians to prolong life and to delay that even the presence of severly debilitating conditions. However, benefical medicine technology may be harmful when used as a life-sustaining measure, in terminally ill patients. Elderly people themselves often fear and believe a zealous aplication of that kind of life-sustaining procedures will just prolong their suffering.

What the physician should do? To undertake the treatment and the life-support systems or follow the “do not resuscitate” order?