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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >> People choosing comfort care were more likely to be white, a college graduate, in good health and be more health literate, the study noted.
Six weeks later, the researchers asked the participants whether their choices had changed. Among those who had not seen the video, 29 percent changed their choice, compared with just 6 percent of those who'd seen the video.
"There is a lot of perception in the medical community that we need to protect our patients from what these diseases are like," Volandes said. But, he pointed out, "the patients were very comfortable watching the video."
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Volandes thinks videos could be used with other terminal conditions such as heart failure, advanced cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
"Videos offer information that verbal descriptions often cannot," he said. "In this case, the adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words' is true, because, after the video, we know that when patients use the words 'advanced dementia' and when the doctor uses the words 'advanced dementia,' we are both on the same page."
"Videos make these diseases real," he said.
However, Elizabeth Gould, director of quality care programs at the Alzheimer's Association, is not convinced that's the route to take.
"There are so many things that come up at the end of life that present a lot of moral dilemmas for families," Gould said. "We want to urge that people are planning and doing what they can to plan for the future." Planning end-of-life care, she said, should start as soon as possible after a degenerative fatal disease such as Alzheimer's is diagnosed.
People should be informed about what they will encounter and what treatments are available, Gould said. "At this point, we don't know enough about video to see how effective that would be, but the main point is that people are getting education and planning for the future," she said.
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