end-of-life issues

You receive a phone call that one of your parents, no longer at “the top of their game,” has fallen in a nursing home. Not only fallen but broken their leg. Without surgery, they will be confined to a bed or chair; with surgery comes an increased risk of dying in the immediate “aftermath” of the procedure. What should you do? A new study considers those issues, which unfortunately are more common than we like to believe.
Making life or death decisions has been brought into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic. For the estimated 500,000 people on dialysis in the U.S., that is a bridge already crossed. Having chosen a life requiring continuous life support, do any of them have second thoughts?