ABSTRACT
To achieve a good death, people need advance planning to opt-out from life-prolonging technologies. This chapter argues that the conventional ‘opt-out’ model based on an underlying paradigm of presumption for life is neither thoughtful nor practical for the old-old. Having completed a full life, it is rational to presume that a peaceful death meets the expectations of most old-olds. Therefore, the paradigm of presumption for life should be replaced by the presumption for peaceful death for the old-old, which means no life-sustaining treatment should be continuously given to unconscious old-old patients without a written advance directive demanding otherwise.
