In the Matter of Dinnerstein

This case, which comes to us on a report (without decision but with extensive findings of fact) from a judge of a Probate Court, turns on the question whether a physician attending an incompetent, terminally ill patient may lawfully direct that resuscitation measures be withheld in the event of cardiac or respiratory arrest where such a direction has not been approved in advance by a Probate Court.

The patient is a sixty-seven year old woman who suffers from a condition known as Alzheimer’s disease. It is a degenerative disease of the brain of unknown origin, described as presenile dementia,…