Slow Medicine: Just What the Doctor Ordered

Thanks for bringing this book to our attention Carol.  To me, slow medicine seems to present an opportunity for caregivers and loved ones to cherish the journey together. Though death is not a happy occasion for those of us left behind, it can be a learning journey and one that we might walk away more with some sense of grace.

I invite others to join our discussion - I imagine there are many of you who have similiar experiences with choices at death with a loved one.

All the best, sue

Slow medicine is indeed a new approach for long-term illness and esp. for the end stage of Alzheimer's and other diseases.

It depends on the culture. Usually caucasians or North American/Europe accept this. For Asians, some cultures are conservative and would be shy from it. However, in modern time, gradually most people/cultures accept this new concept. For older people, like my mother, it would be very difficult to accept. Or she would think we are not being nice. (For herself, she would.) For my father and my father-in-law, they are really really pro-life. When a person is pro-life, he/she does not understand or care for the suffering (not that they don't care for that), but he/she just felt one cannot terminate one's life like that.

For both sides, it is easier said than done. At the last moment, it is sad and emotional, no one can really know what to do although rationally you know what has to be done.

It also has to do with the understanding of the medical procedures. For example, when my late mom-in-law was in the hospice, the doctor stopped feeding excepy regular IVs. My father-in-law was upset and asked them to put it back. It didn't really matter much because she died a few days later. He just felt it was  cruel.

So that is all I want to say. I hate to quote my private family's situations as they are private to my parents or father-in-law.

But it is the truth.

Nina