Mechanical ventilation may be lifesaving, but in certain patient cases it may prolong suffering without a clear benefit. JAMA Internal Medicine published a study of 635,008 hospitalizations of nursing-home patients with advanced dementia and severe functional impairment. Between 2000 and 2013, the use of mechanical ventilation nearly doubled among these patients in some 2,600 cohort hospitals, yet the one-year mortality of ventilated patients remained above 80 percent.

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