Legal and Ethical Issues in End of Life Care

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HEALTHY AGING
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Legal and ethical issues in end of life care
Patients with chronic diseases often spend a lot of time in hospitals and healthcare centers
seeking care. Clinicians and nurses interact with these patients for a long time in order to provide
treatment and monitoring of the conditions. They therefore get to better understand the patient
needs and devise a care plan that is all rounded and that seeks to increase patient satisfaction.
End of life care refers to healthcare of people in their final hours of living as determined by their
healthcare providers (Chan et al, 2016). It involves care of terminally ill patients whose condition
has advanced and progressed over time to levels that treatment methods have little or no effect at
all. End of life care like any other form of care provision requires the utmost attention and
dedication of the nursing staff and care providers in order to ensure that the patient needs are
met. There is need to incorporate a holistic care provision plan that values ethics and well-being
of a patient (Bassot, 2016).
In the case study under discussion, Mac is a patient with a history of chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease and Alzheimer’s. These two conditions are chronic in nature and require time
to time monitoring. Due to the nature of his condition, there is need to provide a care plan that
prepares the patient for end of life as well as observes law and ethics. Alzheimer’s disease is a
condition that affects a person memory and causes dementia (Thomas, Lobo & Detering, 2017).
It is a progressive disease that worsens over time. Mac’s is 86 years which suggests that his
Alzheimer’s condition has worsened to alarming levels. His wife states that he is ready to die
indicating that the condition has affected him for quite a long time. She further added that he will
probably die with the next chest pain attack indicating that his chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease had also advanced. Since the patient is considered to be in his last stages of life, there is

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need to respect the patient’s wishes as much as possible during the treatment process (Curtis et
al, 2016).
It is ethical for clinicians and nurses to provide care that values and respects the patient’s
choices and decisions when it comes to deciding on options available for treatment. Informed
consent forms a primary principle when it comes to the care of a patient. Since healthcare should
always be patient-centered, the patient has the right to make decisions on available treatment
forms. Informed consent involves the patient giving permission to receive a certain form of
treatment after clearly understanding what it entails and its side effects (Wright et al, 2016). It
forms an important ethical issue when it comes to health care of any patient. In this case study,
Mac was suffering from Alzheimer’s which is often associated with memory loss. The patient is
therefore not in a position to make sound judgement to the form of treatment and care that they
would prefer. However it is important for the nurse to act in the best interest of the patient at all
times.
The patient in this case should be involved in their care process and advised accordingly
despite the nature of their condition. The final decision in the treatment process should always
come from the patient (Bone et al, 2018). It is always important to maintain respect for all
patients as required by the nursing codes of ethics. The patient in this case seems to use vulgar
language towards the nurse and the wife claims that he could not use search terms if it was not
for his Alzheimer’s condition. As a nurse, it is important to understand the situation of the patient
and comply with their demands in order to maintain respect and dignity of the patient. The
nursing codes of ethics require the nurses to always maintain the highest level of professionalism
and good conduct when attending to patients (Sallnow et al, 2016). It is therefore unethical to use
vulgar language during practice despite insults from the patient.