Views of elderly patients and their relatives on cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Proposed guidelines for withholding cardiopulmonary resuscitation suggest that "when appropriate, consultations with patients or their relatives, or both, should be considered before decisions are made." In practice when a decision is made not to resuscitate an elderly patient the patient is rarely consulted even if he or she is mentally competent. Relatives are more likely to be consulted. We assessed the views of both elderly patients and their relatives on this subject.