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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And I should add, she wouldn't want it. She always told me that if she couldn't consent to surgery due to that kind of decline, that I should not authorize it. [/quote]

Are you OP? Then that's your answer. With that said, cannot tell you what's best, but here's our story. My father was put under aneasthesia at age 87 for a colonoscopy because of bleeding. When my parents said this was the plan, I told them it made no sense. They are looking for cancer, which at his age, should not be treated. They should just treat the symptomes. They did it anyway, he woke up from the anesthesia in a delirium and stayed that way for 18 months until he died, living in the skilled nursing unit of their senior community. A few days before he died, the doctor called my older sister, who was their POA--my mom had mild dementia at the time, but had just fallen and was herself not cognitively well, triggering my sister's POA--telling her that he would die if he wasn't taken to the hospital for a transfusion. Shockingly, she told the doctor to take him. The doctor called me and gently implied he didn't agree with her decision and could I do anything? I called my sister and not as gently said: have you also lost your mind? Our father has spent 18 months believing he is living in an Amish community, being persecuted for a heinous crime--and that's when he's not in a near catatonic state. She relented and my father quietly died a few days later. While going through his paperwork, after all this, the nurse on his floor found his advance directives, which very clearly stated "no lifesaving measures, including transfusions." TL/DR: your answer may be there as well. What does her advance directive say? What does she want? And anesthesia for the elderly and especially those with dementia is very risky.[/quote]

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