Overview
For this assignment, read the following case studies. Please answer the questions that are located after the scenario for the case study that you select.
Refusal of Life-Prolonging Treatment
T.K. is a 75-year-old woman living with her husband in a retirement community. She has always
valued her independence, but recently she has been having trouble caring for herself. She is
having difficulty walking; managing her medications for COPD, heart disease, and hypertension;
and starting to show signs of kidney failure. T.K.’s physician diagnoses depression after noting
that she has lost interest in the things she once enjoyed. She refuses medication and her
symptoms have worsened, and she talks of suicide. Several months later, the physician informs
T.K. that she will have to start dialysis because of her advancing kidney failure. This would
require her to go to the dialysis unit three times a week for 3-4 hours each session. After the
second treatment, T.K. informs her physician that she refuses dialysis treatment and asks to be
allowed to die.
1. Is T.K. competent enough to decide about the right to die?
2. How does his earlier diagnosis of depression affect how you would manage his decision?
Please write a 1-2 page paper answering the above questions. Please use 12-point Times New Roman Font and please double-space your paper.
Please include 2 references to support your answers to the questions. Please have references no older than 10 years.
Please format citations and references using APA formatting. Please have a separate page for your reference list.
You are not required to have a title page, headers, or page numbers but can include any of these elements if you would like.