What is a life worth living?

Excerpt

Decompressive craniectomy (DC) has during the past decade become a treatment option for patients with life-threatening, severe, increased intracranial pressure unresponsive to non-surgical treatments. The evidence for efficacy of DC is especially high when increased intracranial pressure is caused by malignant media infarction (MMI) [1, 2]. In this setting, DC has been proved to significantly reduce mortality. The lifesaving quality of DC might be justification enough for some to implement the procedure in routine use, but for others it needs to lead to a minimum quality of life that makes life worth living. This reflection is extremely relevant in this context because DC in MMI is very likely to save the patient’s life, but it will not reverse the severe neurological deficits induced by the stroke itself. In some patients the procedure will even induce more severe neurological deficits. …