[Transcript created by voice recognition]

Should Patients Take It? Monday, July 12, 2021

Some bioethicists support age-related rationing of ventilators during the Covid-19 pandemic as a way to save the most lives. But that goal might be better realized without strict age cutoffs.

Of all the “isms,” ageism is arguably the hardest to address because old age neither a valued stage of life nor an identity that many claim. The coronavirus pandemic may have made that effort even harder.

Do the elderly have special obligations during a pandemic, that is, something more than the duty we all have for hand washing, social distancing, and so on? I believe the answer is, yes, and foremost among these is an obligation for parsimonious use of newly scarce and expensive health care resources.

Public discussion and policy often cite “aging in place” as a way to improve quality of life and reduce costs of older people. However, in part because of socioeconomic differences and structural inequalities, not all older adults can live in or move to age-supportive communities, neighborhoods, or homes that match their values and needs.These challenges are the focus of a public event cosponsored by The Hastings Center and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

In a new essay in the Health Affairs Blog Grantswatch, Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger and president Mildred Z. Solomon offer a glimpse of the Center’s major new research agenda on the ethics of population aging, with a focus on the precarity of older adults, questions of justice, and issues of personal choice. The work is made possible by a generous grant to The Hastings Center from The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust as part of its visionary support for the Center’s research and public engagement on ethical challenges facing aging societies.

As the American population ages and dementia is on the rise, The Hastings Center is embarking on pathbreaking research to explore foundational questions associated with the dementia trajectory and the concerns of persons facing this terminal condition. This new research is made possible by a major g...

“Improving patient experience” has become the mantra of many health care facilities in a highly competitive and regulated environment. But just what is it about the patient experience that needs to be improved?  Will better food and gift bags do the trick? Or are more basic changes required?

How should we think about the ethics of everyday interpersonal relationships focused on giving and receiving care? When home is also a care setting, how can family members and other caregivers best provide care to older adults? What protections are needed for migrant workers who provide care in the h...

Nearly 11 million Americans use long-term care for help with daily tasks such as bathing and preparing meals, and yet few have private long-term care insurance. Thus, most of the cost of this care, which averages $140,000 a year, falls on family members and Medicaid. The scope of the problem and what...

In an earlier piece, “Trumping Drug Costs,” I looked at out-of-pocket costs as the pivotal issue with drugs. They can be a particularly heavy burden on the elderly, taking money from their savings and a large bite of their Social Security income. Along the way, I also looked at out-of-pocket medi...

Eric Kandel, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine who has done groundbreaking work on the molecular mechanisms of memory, spoke at The Hastings Center on May 22 about the differences between normal age-related memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as the possibility that ...

That question was the focus of  “Long Term Care in New York City, circa 2030,” a panel discussion hosted by the New York City Bar Association on May 3 that included Hastings research scholar Nancy Berlinger. In 2030, one million New Yorkers will be age 65 or older. This trend is consistent worl...

The death of former first lady Barbara Bush at age 92 was noteworthy in many ways. She was by all accounts smart, sharp and funny, and a fine, helpful wife to one president and mother to another. Her death last week after a long illness, with her husband at her side, was a model of palliative care su...

A woman juggles caring for her aged father at home and going to work. A volunteer cares for an 83-year-old man who lives alone and wonders why the man’s son doesn’t take more of an interest. Staff members at a nursing home, discussing a patient with dementia who hits staff members, wonder if it�...