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Biomedical subjects

R A Pearlman

Publications and source records attributed to R A Pearlman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1995

Use of the medical futility rationale in do-not-attempt-resuscitation orders.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the use of the medical futility rationale in do-not-attempt-resuscitation (DNAR) orders written for medical inpatients. DESIGN: Structured interviews with medical residents. METHODS: Second- and third-year internal medicine residents (n = 44) were telephoned weekly and briefly interviewed about each patient who received a DNAR order in the preceding week. SETTING: Two university-affiliated hospitals: a veterans affairs medical center and a municipal hospital. PATIENTS: One hundred forty-five medical inpatients for whom DNAR orders were written during their hospitalization. RESULTS: Residents stated that the medical futility rationale applied for 91 patients (63%), but this rationale was invoked independent of patient or surrogate choice for only 17 patients (12%). Of the 91 patients for whom futility applied, both quantitative futility (low probability of success) and qualitative futility (poor quality of life if cardiopulmonary resuscitation [CPR] were performed) applied to 45 (49%), quantitative futility alone to 30 (33%), and qualitative futility alone to 16 (18%). Residents report that they discussed resuscitation issues with all communicative patients for whom the medical futility rationale was invoked. Among patients for whom quantitative futility applied, residents' predictions of the probability that patients would survive to hospital discharge after CPR varied from 0% (for 60% of patients) to 75%. For 32% of these patients, residents predicted survival at 5% or more. Logistic regression modeling showed that the presence of organ failure (odds ratio [OR], 8.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.3 to 23.9), the residents' estimates of the probability of surviving CPR (OR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.88 to 0.99), and nonwhite race (OR, 2.7; 95% CI, 1.1 to 6.3) were associated with the determination of quantitative futility. In one third of the cases where qualitative futility applied, residents made the judgment of qualitative futility without discussing quality of life with communicative patients. Logistic regression modeling showed immobility (OR, 3.2; 95% CI, 1.1 to 9.0) and age > or = 75 years (OR, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 0.8) to be associated with the determination of qualitative futility. CONCLUSIONS: While residents did not appear to use the medical futility rationale to avoid discussing DNAR issues with patients, we found evidence of important misunderstandings of the concepts of both quantitative and qualitative futility. If the futility rationale is to be applied to withholding or withdrawing medical interventions, practice guidelines for its use should be developed, and education about medical futility must be incorporated into medical school, residency training, and continuing medical education programs.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation↗
PubMed1995

Advance care planning: eliciting patient preferences for life-sustaining treatment.

Patient autonomy is a guiding principle in medical decision-making in America. This is challenging when patients become mentally incapacitated and cannot express their preferences. Advance care planning (ACP) addresses this challenge. ACP is a deliberative and communicative process that helps people formulate and communicate preferences for future medical care in the event of mental incapacity. Advance directives are mechanisms for communicating and/or documenting ACP, and are either instructional (e.g. statement of treatment preferences in living wills) or proxy types (e.g. appointment of another person to speak on the patient's behalf). ACP discussions between patients and health care providers and patient-orientated educational ACP materials often ignore insights from 2 related activities, health promotion and human information processing. More effective ACP should occur with greater attention to the concepts of stages of change and self-efficacy, the Health Belief Model, and the necessary requisites for cognitive integration.

Advance Care Planning↗
PubMed1995

Involuntary weight loss in older outpatients: incidence and clinical significance.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the incidence, anthropometric parameters, and clinical significance of weight loss in older outpatients. DESIGN: Four-year prospective cohort study. SETTING: University-affiliated Veterans Affairs Medical Center. PATIENTS: Two hundred forty-seven community-dwelling male veterans 65 years of age or older. MEASUREMENTS: Anthropometrics (weight, height, skin-folds, and circumferences), health status measures (Sickness Impact Profile scores, health care utilization, self-reported ratings of health), and bloodwork (cholesterol, albumin, others) were obtained at baseline and followed annually for 2 years. Outcome measures (hospitalization, nursing home placement, and mortality rates) were followed for a minimum of 2 years after any identified weight change. MAIN RESULTS: The mean annual percentage weight change for the study population was -0.5% (SD: +/- 4.0%; range: -17% to +25%). Four percent annual weight loss was determined to be the optimal cutpoint for defining clinically important involuntary weight loss using ROC curve analysis. The annual incidence of this degree of involuntary weight loss was 13.1%. At baseline, involuntary weight losers were similar to nonweight losers in age (73.9 +/- 7.9 vs 73.3 +/- 6.7 years), body mass index (26.8 +/- 3.9 vs 26.9 +/- 4.1 kg/m2), and all other anthropometric, health status, and laboratory measures. Relative to nonweight losers, involuntary weight losers had significantly (P < or = .05) greater decrements in central skinfold and circumference measures (subscapular skinfolds, -2.9 vs -0.4 mm; suprailiac skinfolds, -4.2 vs -0.2 mm; and waist to hip ratio, -.01 vs + .00). Both groups had significant decreases in their triceps skinfolds (an estimate of peripheral subcutaneous fat), whereas arm muscle area and albumin levels did not decline significantly in either group. Over a 2-year follow-up period, mortality rates were substantially higher (RR = 2.43; 95% CI = 1.34-4.41) among involuntary weight losers (28%) than among nonweight losers (11%). Of interest, a similar increase in 2-year mortality (36%) was also observed among subjects with voluntary weight loss (by dieting). Survival analyses adjusting for differences between weight losers and nonweight losers in baseline age, BMI, tobacco use, and other health status and laboratory measures yielded similar results. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that involuntary weight loss occurred frequently (13.1% annual incidence) in this population of older veteran outpatients. When involuntary weight loss occurred, the predominant anthropometric changes were decrements in measures of centrally distributed fat (trunkal skinfolds and circumferences). Finally, involuntary weight loss greater than 4% of body weight appears to be clinically important as an independent predictor of increased mortality.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1993

Contributions of empirical research to medical ethics.

Empirical research pertaining to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), clinician behaviors related to do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and substituted judgment suggests potential contributions to medical ethics. Research quantifying the likelihood of surviving CPR points to the need for further philosophical analysis of the limitations of the patient autonomy in decision making, the nature and definition of medical futility, and the relationship between futility and professional standards. Research on DNR orders has identified barriers to the goal of patient involvement in these life and death discussions. The initial data on surrogate decision making also points to the need for a reexamination of the moral basis for substituted judgment, the moral authority of proxy decision making and the second-order status of the best interests standard. These examples of empirical research suggest that an interplay between empirical research, ethical analysis and policy development may represent a new form of interdisciplinary scholarship to improve clinical medicine.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation↗
PubMed1992

An ethical framework for rationing health care.

This paper proposes an ethical framework for rationing publicly-financed health care. We begin by classifying alternative rationing criteria according to their ethical basis. We then examine the ethical arguments for four rationing criteria. These alternatives include rationing high technology services, non-basic services, services to patients who receive the least medical benefit, and services that are not equally available to all. We submit that a just health care system will not limit basic health care to persons unable to pay for it. Furthermore, justice in health care requires limiting publicly-financed non-basic health care, striving for equality in access to basic health care, and relying on medical benefit to ration non-basic health care.

Beneficence↗
PubMed1992

Relationship of general advance directive instructions to specific life-sustaining treatment preferences in patients with serious illness.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether brief general instructions in a typical proxy-instruction advance directive (California Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care [DPAHC]) provide interpretable information about patient requests to limit life-saving treatments, and to determine whether patient treatment preferences are stable over time. DESIGN: Prospective structured interviews. SETTING: University of California, San Diego Medical Center and Veterans Affairs Medical Center, La Jolla. PATIENTS: One hundred four patients (from a randomly chosen sample of 185) with a 5-year life expectancy of no better than 50% as judged by their physicians. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Patients completed the California DPAHC, a proxy-instruction advance directive, at entry and at 1 year. The patients also completed a questionnaire at entry, after 6 months, and after 1 year, indicating their preferences on a five-point Likert-format comparative rating scale for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition, and hospitalization for pneumonia. RESULTS: Sixty-eight percent of the subjects executed the DPAHC. Most patients wished treatments to be limited or withheld under certain conditions of reduced quality of life. Although general instructions noted on the DPAHC and preferences regarding specific procedures were stable over the course of a year, the advance directive's general instructions were often inconsistent with, and poor predictors of, specific procedure preferences. CONCLUSIONS: The brief general instruction component of the California DPAHC is not helpful in communicating patient wishes regarding specific life-saving procedures.

Advance Directives↗
PubMed1991

Quality of life in elderly, chronically ill outpatients.

Quality of life (QL) in elderly outpatients is poorly characterized. We interviewed 258 elderly outpatients from three health care settings to identify the attributes and events that affect self-assessment of QL. These outpatients rated their QL as acceptable, citing medical care, health, interpersonal relationships, financial status, and functional status as affecting their QL. Overall QL ratings were not strongly associated with objective indicators such as demographic characteristics and use of health care services. Subjective indicators, including patient perceptions of health, memory, and financial concerns, were correlated independently with global QL (sigma R2 = .35). We conclude that older, chronically ill patients generally consider their QL to be acceptable and affected by a variety of factors, including their perceptions of their emotional, socioeconomic, intellectual, and physical functioning. Furthermore, QL is poorly associated with objective indicators. Thus, in assessing the QL of elderly, chronically ill outpatients, physicians should elicit information regarding these perceptions.

Aged↗
PubMed1991

Perceived quality of life and preferences for life-sustaining treatment in older adults.

We investigated whether perceived quality of life is associated with preferences for life-sustaining treatment for older adults. Participants included chronically ill, elderly outpatients (N = 258) and their primary physicians (N = 105). Patients and physicians were independently administered a questionnaire regarding patient quality of life and preferences for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mechanical ventilation for the patient. Physicians rated patients' global quality of life, physical comfort, mobility, depression, anxiety, and family relationships significantly worse than did patients. Nearly all perceptions of patients' quality of life were significantly associated with physicians' perceptions, but not patients' treatment preferences. Patient-physician agreement on patient global quality of life was not significantly associated with agreement regarding treatment preferences. We conclude that primary physicians generally consider their older outpatients' quality of life to be worse than do the patients. Furthermore, physicians' estimations of patient quality of life are significantly associated with physicians' attitudes toward life-sustaining treatment for the patients. For the patients, however, perceived quality of life does not appear to be associated with their preferences for life-sustaining treatment.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

Growth of the teaching nursing home. The Veterans Administration experience.

Nursing homes are becoming increasingly involved with medical education, and the Veterans Administration (VA) has been particularly active in this movement. We conducted a system-wide survey of VA nursing home facilities to determine the degree to which they participate in medical and other professional training and the features associated with such training. Of the 116 VA nursing homes in 1987, 113 (97.4%) returned completed questionnaires. Compared to "standard" VA facilities (n = 85), "teaching" nursing homes (n = 28)--those in which physicians received at least 20 hours of training per capita annually--were significantly larger, admitted and discharged significantly more patients per occupied bed, and placed a significantly larger proportion of discharged patients in noninstitutional community settings. Care costs in the teaching nursing homes were slightly but not significantly higher, despite significant increases in levels of professional staffing and amounts of training activities in all disciplines. During the survey year, teaching nursing homes provided training experiences for 440 students, residents, and fellows in internal and rehabilitation medicine, as well as for 2,700 other health professionals. The growth of teaching nursing homes in the VA system appears to be associated with positive changes in the pattern of health-care delivery, and it is increasing the number of health-care professionals trained in long-term care.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

Stability of patient preferences regarding life-sustaining treatments.

Physicians often express concern about the reliability of critically ill patients' preferences regarding life-sustaining treatments. We interviewed 30 Veterans Administration intensive care unit patients to determine their preferences for resuscitation, resuscitation requiring mechanical ventilation, artificial hydration and nutrition, and hospitalization for treatment of pneumonia. Patients expressed their preferences considering their current health and then two hypothetical scenarios, stroke and dementia. Follow-up interviews occurred one month later to assess preference stability. We found a diversity of opinions about life-sustaining treatments. Despite significant changes in health status and mood (p less than 0.05), treatment preferences were stable over time (kappa = .35-.70). Our results suggest that life-sustaining treatment preferences solicited during a serious illness are reliable and may be used in decision-making when a patient becomes unable to communicate or is mentally incapacitated.

Aged↗
PubMed1989

Ethical constraints on rationing medical care by age.

In a statement published in this issue, the Public Policy Committee of the American Geriatrics Society endorses the view that chronological age should not be a criterion for exclusion of individuals from medical care. This article aims to amplify the Committee's position by placing it within a broader context and identifying its justification in ethical argument. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part clarifies the difference between allocation (the distribution of funds between categories) and rationing (the distribution of funds within a single category). It is argued that given the current allocation of funds to medical care, some form of rationing is unavoidable. As others have noted, rationing is already occurring in an informal and piecemeal fashion. However, ethically sound rationing requires publicly debated and defensible policies. The second section of the paper reviews a number of arguments advanced in favor of rationing medical care on the basis of age. Objections to these arguments are carefully set out. The final part of the paper details and defends a series of positive arguments establishing special duties to the elderly. The paper concludes that to the extent that scarcity forces rationing, older persons should not be excluded because they are old.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1989

Understanding of elderly patients' resuscitation preferences by physicians and nurses.

We compared the understanding by family physicians and nurses of their elderly outpatients' preferences for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and mechanical ventilation under 3 scenarios reflecting varying qualities of life. Physicians and nurses correctly predicted patients' treatment preferences in from 59% to 84% and 53% to 78% of cases, respectively, for the various decisions. For most decisions, neither physicians nor nurses were significantly more accurate in their predictions than expected by chance alone. Moreover, nurses and physicians did not significantly agree with one another in their predictions of patients' preferences for any of these decisions. These results suggest that while nurses' and physicians' perceptions of patients' preferences for life-sustaining treatment are not necessarily similar, neither nurses nor physicians systematically understand their elderly patients' resuscitation preferences.

Aged↗