Should my mother get a pacemaker?

Speaking from the voice of experience DO NOT DO IT. My mother has one, is basically falling apart but this pacemaker is keeping her alive artificially. My 95 yo mother was dying last year and the cardiologist said her heart could not sustain life. She had a DNR. They suggested a pacemaker. My sisters and I did not want further intervention but my father insisted that she have one. So she got one.

She cannot do anything for herself any longer, and all she does in sit in her chair all day and complain that she wishes she were dead. She is now outliving her finances.

No one benefits from giving a 95 yo immobile, incontinent person a pacemaker besides the hospital and cardiologist.

She has a DNR this shouldn't even be a question. Honor your mother's wishes with no more medical procedures.

Speaking from experience....no. No. If I had to do it over again, I would have wanted my mother to go relatively painlessly from a heart attack than from what she is going through now...long, slow, decline. Without pacemaker, she almost died on her kitchen floor, independent, happy...but the pacemaker allowed her to live 6 more years and counting with no end in sight, and losing all her independence and dignity. Not to mention--the rehab after. It takes a lot out of a person.
I am personally against letting suffering go on and prolonging lives only to let us suffer more pain. Especially with dementia, which is mental torture in most cases. I wish I knew then what I know now. We are not meant to live forever, until we are shells of ourselves, just because medicine exists to keep the heart pumping.
Good luck to you, and rest easy if you let the pacemaker issue go. It sounds like you care very much about doing the right thing, but there comes time when medical intervention is...intervention. And not in our best interest. And even if hard for you to do--it was her wish.

My honest opinion is that prolonging someone’s life when they are in the mid stage of dementia is not wise. So her heart keeps going strong and her mind is gone? No thanks. Alzheimer’s is a cruel beast of a disease. I would not prolong someone’s life suffering from if I could help it.

I may be faciing this question myself soon. Right now I am getting ready to have a long time (6 months or more) heart monitor implanted. I am 89 and the only thing that scares me is having a stroke and NOT dying but being helpless in bed. I have already had multiple small strokes and one big one. My husband had a pacemaker, it did not stop him from dying when his kidneys failed. I say, if she does not want intervention, and it is written down go witih it. This is a reminder to self, self when I am done with doctors, be sure it is on paper.

A pacemaker is not a resuscitative device. It will not "restart" the heart, unless there is a defibrillator as a part of the unit. And the defibrillator can easily be turned off in the cardiologist's office, non-invasively.

My mom had a DNR and she underwent pacemaker implantation successfully. It was done under a local anesthesia. When she entered hospice, her doctor "turned off" the defibrillator, but that was more for us, her family's sake than hers. It was explained to me by her hospice team that her device would NOT keep her alive, but with the defibrillator on, it might shock her internally once she started her "transition", which would not cause her any pain, but can be distressing to family who see it.

If you are uncertain about this, I would talk to her cardiologist at length (or whatever doctor is recommending the procedure) and ask him/her all of these questions as well as voice any concerns you might have. Contact the doctor's office and see if they have an option for a Zoom meeting or some such video conference to talk about this. I would ask about the pros and cons of the procedure and garner enough information to make an educated decision rather than rely on the opinion of non-medical people who may not have the correct information.

"Obviously the pacemaker for your mother was a life extender. I don't know why people say they aren't. Isn't it like a defibrillator for the heart? Just wondering from when the pacemaker was installed how long your mother lived and her quality of life"

No, SP. A pacemaker isn't a "defibrillator for the heart". Most pacemakers that are implemented also include an external defibrillator ***HOWEVER*** the defibrillator has the ability to be turned off in the doctor's office.

My mother had her pacemaker implanted at 85 years old with advanced congestive heart failure. It wasn't "sold" as a procedure to prolong her life; indeed, it did not prolong her life. Nor did it not keep her alive once she was actively dying. What it DID do was to manage her A-Fib, which was getting to the point of concern that she was going to stroke out. While her dying of a stroke at 85 would have been sad, the GREATER concern was what would happen if the stroke DIDN'T kill her. There was the possibility of paralysis, blindness, unable to swallow, and all the other lovely things that go hand in hand with a stroke.

Did it make her quality of life better? That depends on how you would rate that. It didn't make it possible for her to run marathons or leap tall building in a single bound. It did nothing to make it easier for her to breathe. But it kept her from having a catastrophic medical event that would most certainly have made her quality of life WORSE if she had survived it.

When the time came for mom to go into hospice, I took her to the cardiologist to have the defibrillator function disabled. The tech came in with his laptop, typed in a few things and told her "ok, it's off". I've paid online bills that were more complicated and invasive than that.

The OP should reach out to either mom's doctor, if OP has HIPPA privileges, or to whomever mom designated that and ask THEM if this procedure is medically necessary. What potentially could happen if mom doesn't have it, and what is the likelihood that it would actually happen? Those were always the first questions we asked when it came to my mom as she got older.

While I agree that there are many medical procedures that become redundant the older you get - the post about the man with advanced dementia being told by his doctor he needed a colonoscopy leaps to mind - I don't think a blanket "absolutely no treatments whatsoever" is the right way to go either.

At 90 with dementia, that would be a hard no. She won't understand the details of this procedure with moderate dementia. Do you have an activated POA? So tell her and her doctor that the answer is no thanks. My mom is 80 with moderate dementia and I would not do it.

Since your mother has a do not resuscitate clause, you must abide by this request and stop any medical intervention. Your mother has lived to a ripe old age and she does not want her life to be prolonged with medical devices and interventions. Your mother feels that she has lived a full life and it is now time for her to go.

"Pacemakers send electrical pulses to help your heart beat at a normal rate and rhythm. Pacemakers can also be used to help your heart chambers beat in sync so your heart can pump blood more efficiently to your body. This may be needed if you have heart failure."

Seems pacemakers just make sure the heart beat normally. From what I understand, its a simple procedure. If it will help Mom feel better, I see no problem in getting the procedure done. But I don't think it prolongs life. When Dementia hits the part of the brain that controls heart and lungs, the person dies.