How is the decision on how long to continue life sustaining treatment made? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Findings on a routine EEG called sleep spindles may be helpful in determining if a nonresponsive person who’s had a brain injury will recover, a new study reveals. Susanne Muehlschlegel, a critical care neurologist at Johns Hopkins, says this may help clinicians come to this very challenging recommendation.

Muehlschlegel: I would say that comfort level is very variable if you ask a clinician. I'm not sure there is a time window that we should generalize we must wait till. My personal preference would maybe be 3 weeks but I would also consider would the patient be OK with being in bed or having a tracheostomy and waiting and waiting and being dependent on others until some magic time point, and I think it really is a patient preference sensitive decision.            :33

Muehlschlegel says everyone should make sure their loved ones know what their wishes would be regarding life sustaining treatment. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.