{
  "id": 12650700,
  "title": "Survey participants less likely to recommend life-sustaining care for patients with dementia, despite documented wishes",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/survey-participants-less-likely-to-recommend-life-sustaining-care-for",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-07T15:00:29.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Medical Xpress",
    "slug": "medical-xpress",
    "url": "https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-survey-life-sustaining-patients-dementia.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A recent study has found that individuals are approximately 19 percentage points less inclined to endorse life-sustaining treatment for patients with dementia compared to those without dementia. This research, conducted by the University of Colorado Anschutz, surveyed nearly 6,000 U.S. adults and examined the impact of a patient's dementia status, advance directives, physician recommendations, and surrogate decision-maker preferences on end-of-life care decisions. The findings revealed that regardless of documented patient wishes, dementia status significantly influenced participants' recommendations for life-sustaining care. Even when advance directives specified life-sustaining treatment, participants were only about 41% likely to recommend it for dementia patients, compared to 66% for non-dementia patients. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the patient's quality of life perception, as it greatly impacts treatment decisions, and the necessity for ongoing advance care planning conversations to ensure that the chosen surrogate decision-maker fully comprehends the patient's values and preferences.",
  "summary": "People were about 19 percentage points less likely to recommend life-sustaining treatment for a seriously ill patient with dementia than for a patient without dementia, even when an advance directive requested life-sustaining care, according to new research from the University of Colorado Anschutz.",
  "key_points": [
    "Participants 19% less likely to recommend life-sustaining care for dementia patients",
    "Advance directives don't increase recommendation likelihood for dementia patients",
    "Quality of life perception heavily influences treatment decisions"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}