This case study is about Mr. John, who is in his end stage of Alzheimer’s disease and is unable to swallow due to a recent stroke. His wife proposes insertion of the feeding tube but Mr. John pulls his tube out twice. The wife wants to continue the feeding and insists of putting restraints on Mr. John. This issue requires an ethical consideration in order to decide if the intervention should be continued with the restraints or to listen to the patient who doesn’t want the intervention. Ethically correct decisions can be very distressing especially related to life-sustaining treatments and does not always please everyone involved in that decision. To explore this issue ethically, I would use a decision-making model by Michael McDonald which consists of various steps.
Collect information and identify the problem
Since Mr. John is unable to swallow, it would be dangerous for him to be orally
…show more content…
John’s perspective, he pulls out the feeding tube and seems to be uncooperative. The reasoning behind his approach is unknown but there may be some alternative interpretations. Since, Mr. John is suffering from an end stage Alzheimer’s, his cognitive impairment may compromise his decision-making regarding his health (Yeo & Moorhouse, 2010). He may be unaware of the consequences of the action of removing his feeding tube due to his disease progression. The other alternative for his reasoning can be that he was tired of the suffering and that he was aware that the feeding tube wouldn’t decrease his suffering but just prolong his burden of life. It is also possible that Mr. Khan’s belief’s and values about artificial hydration and nutrition through a tube hinders his dignity and he would rather want to die peacefully (Preston & Kelly, 2006). No one really knows what Mr. John would want for sure. In such cases, where the prior wishes of the patients are unknown, a family member can make a decision that will reveal patient’s best interests (Yeo & Moorhouse,