What happens when they take a person off of life support?

Once the life support has been turned off/removed, the doctors leave the room and invite the family back in. A nurse may remain with the patient to provide painkillers (morphine) if it looks like the patient is experiencing any pain.

Is it rare for a patient to withdraw life support?

“We found that sequential withdrawal of life support is not as rare a phenomenon as previously thought,” said J. Randall Curtis, M.D., MPH, the principal investigator of the study. “It occurred in nearly half of the patients we studied.”

When to stop life support in the ICU?

When surveyed one to two months after the death, family members of patients who had a short ICU stay reported a lower satisfaction with the ICU care if the withdrawal process was extended over more than one day.

What happens to your loved one when they take them off of life?

Depending upon how long the patient lives after that, they may begin to turn blue before they’ve actually passed away. The first person I saw go through this lasted a few hours post-removal, but his blood oxygen levels were in the 20% range at the end, and he was turning blue while still alive.

What happens when a loved one is removed from life support?

“The decision to remove a loved one from life supporting treatment is typically very traumatic for families,” said NINR Director Patricia A. Grady, Ph.D., RN, FAAN. “Once a patient enters the ICU, clinicians may need to help family members develop realistic expectations based on the patient’s prognosis.

“We found that sequential withdrawal of life support is not as rare a phenomenon as previously thought,” said J. Randall Curtis, M.D., MPH, the principal investigator of the study. “It occurred in nearly half of the patients we studied.”

When surveyed one to two months after the death, family members of patients who had a short ICU stay reported a lower satisfaction with the ICU care if the withdrawal process was extended over more than one day.

What to consider when turning off life support?

When you consider whether to turn off life support, there are many individual factors at play. You may wish to think about what the person would have wanted. This is called substituted judgment. Another option is to consider what’s in the best interest of your loved one and try to make a decision based on that.