Over Treatment......

That precious time at home could have come sooner if the family had known how to talk about alternatives to aggressive treatment.  Americans increasingly are treated to death, spending more time in hospitals in their final days, trying last-ditch treatments that often buy only weeks of time, and racking up bills that have made medical care a leading cause of bankruptcies.  More than 80 percent of such patients say they want to avoid hospitalization and intensive care when they are dying, yet the numbers show that's not what is happening.  Often, over treating fatal illnesses happens because patients don't want to give up.  "Cancer that can't be cured is often called daunting but not hopeless. So that's what patients hear. Hope is the last thing to go. People don't give that up easily."