With diminished mental acuity and an old-fashioned respect for the medical profession, some aging patients are vulnerable to unwanted interventions. Stanich agreed to a pacemaker simply because her doctor suggested it, Giaquinto said. Many people of Stanich’s generation “thought doctors were God … They never questioned doctors – ever.”
Margaret Schwarze, MD, a surgeon and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin, said that older patients often don’t feel the financial pain of surgery because insurance pays most of the cost.
When a surgeon offers to “fix” the heart valve in a person with multiple diseases, for example, the patient may assume that surgery will fix all of her medical problems, Dr. Schwarze said. “With older patients with lots of chronic illnesses, we’re not really fixing anything.”
Even as a doctor, Dr. Redberg said, she struggles to prevent other doctors from performing too many procedures on her 92-year-old mother, Mae, who lives in New York City.