Don't Spend Your Final Days Like Gene Hackman
Last month, legendary actor Gene Hackman died in a way many of us fear...
Alone.
Hackman, who was suffering from the late stages of Alzheimer's disease, died in his home a week after his wife died from a rare virus.
It's impossible to know what Hackman's final days were like, but considering his Alzheimer's and heart disease, it's likely he was just unable to care for himself with his wife gone.
Of course, most of us won't experience the same unique circumstances that took the lives of Hackman and his wife. But his story might have you thinking about your own mortality...
Today, we're going to cover one of the many questions you should be asking yourself when planning for the end of your life.
When you think about how you'll die, would you rather:
Slip away peacefully in your sleep...
Be surrounded by loved ones by your bedside...
Or awaken to someone breaking your ribs?
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, better known as CPR, isn't supposed to leave you with the kind of blunt-force chest trauma seen in victims of a major car crash.
But CPR-related injuries are common... especially broken ribs, since you're supposed to press the chest down at least 2 inches during each compression.
One 1987 study of 705 autopsies done on victims of cardiac arrest (most of whom were male, aged 45 on average) found numbers like 42.7% with thoracic complications, 31.6% with rib fractures, and 21.1% with sternal fractures – all due to CPR.
Worse, you could even be awake for the whole, terrible show... If enough blood gets pushed to the brain from those chest compressions, you could even stay awake for the cracking and popping sounds of your ribs separating from your sternum.
One 2022 study of patients aged between 43 and 73 found that as many as 81% of these folks get injured during CPR. And in roughly half of them are massive rib injuries.
Even if you make it through the initial hazard that you needed CPR to survive... the pain from a broken rib makes it harder to take deep breaths.
This shallow breathing compromises your lungs' ability to clear secretions, resulting in inflammation and infection. (Aspiration pneumonia can also happen from inhaling your own vomit – which is also a known side effect from CPR.)
The risk of pneumonia jumps 27% for every broken rib, if you're a senior. Not to mention, your risk of death per broken rib advances by almost 20%.
All right, now back to your cardiac arrest... You're clinically dead when your heart stops beating. And in about four minutes, interrupted blood flow starves your brain of oxygen and begins to kill your brain cells.
So nearly 80% of folks revived from CPR don't wake up right away. Instead, they slip into a coma, which can last for days or weeks. Or you could wake up from the coma without regaining awareness. So you stay in a persistent vegetative state for months or years.
Another possibility is that you could awaken with brain damage severe enough to leave you with neurological problems that rob you of your independence.
Overall, 91% of Americans who receive CPR outside a hospital will die anyway... either because CPR failed to save them or because it introduced its own complications.
Now, does this mean I'm against CPR? No. Even with a mere 9% success rate (or 21% in a hospital), the procedure saves tens of thousands of lives every year.
Plenty of folks will want to fight to the very end... to have their lives saved and extended at all costs, whether it's by resuscitation or undergoing multiple treatments. It depends on your personal beliefs and preferences.
And if you prefer resuscitation, you're in luck – by default, medical-care providers will do everything they can to revive you.
Today, I want you to think about the alternative to this default. Longtime readers know I'm more interested in maximizing my "healthspan" – how long I can stay healthy and active – than simply trying to keep breathing for as many years as possible. And when I reach the end, I want to die peacefully... not take my last breath as part of a painful medical procedure.
I'm not here to make a choice for you. But I do want you to make that choice armed with the knowledge of what this choice means.
Perhaps knowing that resuscitation comes with the very real possibility of being left with devastating injuries – especially as you grow older – means you don't want to be revived after all...
Or you may not want to spend your final years, and your final dollars, battling bedsores in a nursing home...
Or maybe you don't want to keep going to the doctor for costly treatments and medications that become increasingly difficult to tolerate and exacerbate your body's natural decline.
If your priority is to avoid these scenarios of a medicalized death – rather than extending your life, in line with the medical system's default – you have a way to retain your patient autonomy to the very end.
But the sad fact is, two-thirds of American adults are still leaving their bodily autonomy up for grabs.
That's because they have been putting off a critical task. And it's what I call the "most important exit strategy you'll ever need" in last month's issue of Retirement Millionaire. You can grab a trial subscription to read the issue.
Have you considered end-of-life planning? Let us know how prepared you are... feedback@healthandwealthbulletin.com.
What We're Reading...
- Find a Red Cross CPR training class.
- Something different: The molten-cheese empire in Texas that may be responsible for your nachos.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
March 11, 2025