Why are people taken off of life support? What are the downsides for extended use for prolonged life?
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People are put on life support when their bodies are no longer capable of living on their own. There are different types of life support, but they are all there to help assist or replace the functionality of your internal organs.
Life support isn’t always a death sentence. Sometimes it is necessary while while having an operation, for instance artificial heart machines are sometimes used to keep pumping blood during heart surgery. Other times it is temporary while the body fights off an infection, like with ventilators and COVID.
In some cases, it is clear that the person will never recover and will die when taken off life support. In these cases it is often up to a legal representative to decide when to pull the plug.
Most life support systems can’t function forever. Your body is designed to function using your organs, not external machines. Longer term use of machines often results in infections or other problems. So life support systems won’t keep you alive indefinitely, they will just prolong your death from hours to days or weeks. Plus, there is the whatever illness made you sick in the first place, which will often continue to cause problems in your body even while you are on life support.
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