Futility: Case 3
An elderly man who lives in a nursing home is admitted to the medical ward with pneumonia. He is awake but severely demented. He can only mumble, but interacts and acknowledges family members. The admitting resident says that treating his pneumonia with antibiotics would be "futile" and suggests approaching the family with this stance.
Do you agree?
In many cases, "futility" is used inaccurately to describe situations that appear undesirable. For this patient, treating pneumonia with antibiotics stands a reasonable chance of success. The patient's quality of life, though low, is not unacceptably so. Unless the patient (or if found incapacitated, his surrogate) were to say that he would find this quality of life unacceptably low, there is neither quantitative nor qualitative grounds for calling antibiotics futile in this case. Unlike Cases 1 and 2, in Case 3 there is a treatment available that benefits the patient.