| Home | About Hard Choices | Table of Contents | Complete Text | To Order |

• The Four Most Common Decisions
• Goals of Medical Care

• Survival Rates with CPR
• CPR in Nursing Homes
• Burdens of CPR
• CPR and the Patient with a Life-Threatening Illness
• CPR with Children
• CPR Is the Standard Order

• Intravenous (IV) Artificial Hydration
• The Burdens of Artificial Feeding
• The Case For Artificial Feeding in All Circumstances
• The Case Against Artificial Feeding in Some Circumstances
• Would Withholding or Withdrawing Artificial Feeding Cause a Painful Death?
• The Difference Between Withholding and Withdrawing
• Artificial Feeding and the Dementia Patient
• Artificial Feeding and Children
• A Time-Limited Trial

• Hospice, Palliative Care and the "Comfort Care Only" Order
• Goals of Medical Treatment in the "Last Phase of Life"
• Hospice
• What Are Comfort Measures?
• Which Medical Treatments Are Optional?
• Which Patients Are Candidates for Hospice or Comfort Care Only? When Is the Right Time?
• End-Stage Dementia and Comfort Care Only
• Children and Comfort Care Only
• Turning From Cure to Comfort Care Only

• Hospitalization
• Ventilators
• Dialysis
• Antibiotics
• Pain Control
• Some Practical Help for Making Decisions
• What To Do
• Questions To Help Make a Decision
• Getting Help With End-of-Life Decisions

• A Personal Word From a Chaplain-The Four Treatment Decisions .
• Changing the Treatment Plan
• The Emotional Nature of the Struggle
• Treating the Wrong Patient
• Can I Let Go?
• A Lifetime of Letting Go
• Some Religious Questions
• The Spiritual Nature of the Struggle
• Giving Up and Letting Go
• Fatal Isn't the Worst Outcome