@OldAndCranky
Cowards!
I'm circa my fifth decade, with family history of Alzheimer's.
Lots to say about how to hedge one's thought and behaviour in order to #AgeWell and #DieWell but the top ones would be:
1. Stoic philosophy (whatever source you like best... I liked Seneca's letters to Lucilius, for others it's Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and still others drink from Earth Wind and Stars by St Exepury)
2. Advanced Directive (or your national equivalent) to lay out your wishes for once you no longer have capacity. Death is part or life, but there are fates worse than death, and to some degree they can be cheap to hedge against.
3. Look up rates of survival-to-discharge-from-hospital, and survival-to-discharge-back-to-independent-living for folks in your own cohort (age, comorbidities, definition of independent living) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Or discuss this with your physician (probably the old & bold physician who has seen a lot, or if you only have access to young physicians then someone who has spent some of their career in ICU). *Then* have a think about whether or not you'd like a community DNACPR order. Alas we don't have such orders with much nuance... Frankly the public understand them *very* poorly and they get attacked in the press. Depending on one's frailty, I'd think in terms of answering the question "for how long do I wish my death to be prolonged?"
4. Ability to recover from an insult is why octagenerians keep themselves healthy. It might be chemotherapy, sepsis, or urgent/emergent surgery, but its only worthwhile enduring if you and your physicians expect acceptable odds of recovering to a standard of life you can live with.
#fitness #health #MedMastodon