Q. What role do you think caregivers should have in making those kinds of decisions?

A. As the patient gets older, I think the primary caregiver should be involved at each decision-making point in the process. They should be considering questions like, "Are we going to continue treatments, and what's the gain in doing so? And if we don't, what's going to happen? How is this person going to die? What support do we have at home? What do we need at home? Do we need one caregiver? Do we need four? Do we have backup? How are we going to manage?"