Nancy cruzan case

In 1983, Nancy Cruzan was in a persistent vegetative state from a motor vehicle accident. This led to a landmark "right to die" case and the evolution of important documents outlining one's final wishes. Do Not Resuscitate orders became the standard. New wrinkles in the "end of life" debate include "death with dignity" initiatives and "code comfort" actions.

Increasing numbers of patients survive traumatic brain injury and cardiopulmonary arrest and resuscitation and are admitted to the ICU while in coma. Some of these patients become brain dead; others regain consciousness. Still others become vegetative or minimally conscious, conditions called chronic disorders of consciousness and ultimately can be cared for outside the ICU. Whether these patients would want life-sustaining therapy is difficult to determine because most have not articulated their wishes before becoming comatose...

Clinical decision making involves a consideration of multiple factors; clinical options are constructed based on the objective clinical data and evidence-based standards. Technologic advances have led not only to life saving interventions, but also to the use of these technologies when benefit to the patient was unclear or unexamined. The cases of Karen Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Terri Schiavo provide a framework for examining the evolution of clinical decision making, including when to use or not to use technologies such as ventilators and artificial nutrition and hydration, and the role of specific questions in the process...

This article examines the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, as well as three crucial cases, on nursing practice: Terri Schiavo, Karen Quinlan, and Nancy Cruzan. In addition, an individual example is provided to demonstrate how nurses can advocate for patients at the end of life, and specific suggestions are offered.

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The article deals with a the ethical issues about treatment of Persistent Vegetative State (Pvs) patients. The Nancy Beth Cruzan case, the US woman who died after the withdrawal of tube feeding and hydration after seven years of Pvs is analysed as paradigmatic case. The ethical analysis face with the following issues: 1. Is the Pvs synonymous of cerebral death?; 2. How the tube feeding and hydration must be considered: ordinary or extraordinary, proportionate or disproportionate means? 3. The issue of the living will; 4...

This study investigated whether two widely publicized cases of deaths facilitated by physicians were followed by significant peaks in mortality. In March, 1991, Timothy Quill, MD, published a controversial editorial describing the physician-assisted suicide (PAS) of his 45-year-old, female leukemia patient. In a landmark decision in December 1990, the Missouri Supreme Court allowed removal of life support for Nancy Cruzan, a comatose accident victim. Correcting for trends and seasonal fluctuations, the authors examined: (1) U...

Discusses the question, Are a patient's best interests ever served by the removal of artificial nutrition and hydration supports? Poses ethical and theological questions generated by the case of Nancy Cruzan and offers an outline of necessary conditions which ought to be present to make the withholding of artificially induced nutrition and hydration morally licit.

The Supreme Court's first right-to-die ruling, in the Missouri case of Nancy Cruzan, upheld a standard requiring "clear and convincing" evidence of an incompetent patient's wishes before removing life support. But the ruling is anything but clear to providers. The vague ruling has left open to interpretation who can decide when to pull the plug, and under what circumstances.

Until recently, few people had even heard of living wills. Thanks to a young woman named Nancy Cruzan, that is no longer the case.

For the most part, cases involving young or middle-aged persons such as Nancy Cruzan and Paul Brophy have shaped the legal and ethical landscape regarding the obligation to provide nutrition and hydration to nutritionally compromised patients. But the issue of care givers' responsibility in this area also arises frequently in the long-term care setting. One of the most difficult situations to address is what to do when an elderly patient begins to refuse adequate nutrition. Staff at Apartment Community of Our Lady of the Snows, Belleville, IL, had to wrestle with this question when Jane, a 90-year-old resident, decided her life had become too unbearable to continue...

The advance directive is a document that enables a competent individual to specify the form of health care he would like to have, in the event that he is unable to make such decisions in the future. This review paper traces the development of the advance directive from 1967, when it was first proposed by Luis Kutner. The Karen Ann Quinlan case and the Nancy Cruzan case are cited as examples of the case for the advance directive. The argument is that advance directives assist doctors, patients, family members and other carers with the increasingly complex health care decision making...

Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, the first "right to do die" case to be decided by the United States Supreme Court, constitutionalizes the principle of patient self-determination. The case encourages competent patients to reflect thoughtfully about the possibility that one day they may be incapacitated just as Nancy Beth Cruzan was and to prepare for that possibility by completing an advance directive. Furthermore, the recently enacted Patient Self-Determination Act requires hospitals to ask adult patients upon admission whether they have advance directives...

The U.S. Congress enacted the Patient Self-Determination Act in the wake of the Supreme Court's 1990 decision in the case of Nancy Cruzan, which concerned discontinuing life-sustaining medical treatment for a decisionally incapacitated patient. This statute attempts to promote individual autonomy in medical decision making, particularly concerning life-sustaining medical treatments; it imposes specific requirements on organizational health care providers to encourage patients to plan ahead for health care contingencies by executing advance directives such as living wills and durable powers of attorney...

The withholding of nutritional support from patients is one of the most controversial issues in modern medical ethics and law. Withholding support from a consenting, terminally ill patient is the simplest case situation to defend, but patients in a persistent vegetative state or irreversible, chronic illness, require more careful deliberation. Regarding this issue, five primary principles have been utilized in legal decision making. These include: futility, autonomy, integrity of health professionals, states interests, balancing benefits versus harm and quality of life...

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