A little background: my mom had a pacemaker put in about 8years ago (she’s 86). It was a good decision, she was healthy, active, it gave her several good years. Fast forward to today, she has dementia (worsening quickly...usually thinks I’m her mother), she’s blind, has breast cancer, COPD, can barely walk, incontinent, and suffers from anxiety. I am her health care proxy and her POA as well as full time caregiver. I feel as though if the pacemaker wasn’t there her heart just would have slowed down and eventually stopped. Nature taking its course. On her health care proxy she had specified that if she was not going to recover from her illnesses she did not want to be kept going by any artificial means. Although it doesn’t specifically mention a pacemaker couldn’t it include this? Has anyone ever requested a pacemaker be deactivated? What kind of response did you get from the doctors? Any experiences or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
My mom really has no quality of life and I know that if she had her faculties she would not want to go on like this. It's breaking my heart.
Dad had a combo pacemaker and defibrillator. His cardiologist advised against deactivating the pacing part, he said that just makes people feel worse physically. He strongly recommended we think about deactivating the defibrillator, he said it would make a difference between a very painful death and a peaceful death. We turned off the defibrillator part so that he would not get repeated shocks if his heart stopped. Dad’s heart stopped on its own, he still had the pacing part of his device active.
Debbie1955
As it happened , mom died of respiratory failure, so in the end, we did not have to do anything about the pacemaker.
I think the primary questions should be whether the pacemaker is actually prolonging life in this case.
Generally, the cardiologist will not turn it off until the very end. My mother passed on in the hospital recovery room but the nurse didn't/couldn't turn off the pacemaker and Mom breathed deeply 3 times after passing before I asked if it was the pacemaker. Then the nurse turned it off.
The pacemaker is not considered artificial respiration. The pacemaker doesn't keep the person alive, it only keeps the pace for the heart. Your mother will pass when her time comes, with or without the pacemaker. I would think you should leave it alone as without the pacemaker she could wind up having some awful chest pains and severe heart attacks.
Again, there is no way a pacemaker prolongs life - it only keeps pace for the heart.
I didn't ever have to have this difficult conversation with anyone, as things turned out; but if I had the first person I would have turned to would have been the cardiac physiologist who did my mother's routine monitoring and adjustment sessions. These people know all there is to know about the specific points you need to know; and because they're not doctors - responsible for the whole patient, if you see what I mean - they're very good at picking out and explaining the technical aspects dispassionately.
It may be, if your mother's pacemaker is a standard model with no bells or whistles, that it won't have any noticeable effect on her end-of-life process; I just don't know enough to say. But get advice simply to see if this is something that needs to be addressed or that you can safely let be.
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