One of my main concerns about old age the way we do it is that it's lonely. I think you can handle some physical discomfort - even a lot of it - if you feel you are surrounded by meaningful relationships and that you are relevant to your community. Our ideas about getting elders into 24-7 care facilities really remove them from the world of life in a way that concerns me deeply.

These articles illustrate well the balance between quality of life versus quantity. At 51 and with a severely damaged heart, I still have the prospect of living another twenty years provided I make a daily sacrifice of a couple hours of discomforting exercise and two rather bland meals (and one hearty meal). Meanwhile, I constantly question myself whether the time has come to make my own decisions about certain details.

Interesting read.
But probably not as interesting as to a US american.
In NL this line of thinking is pretty prevalent.
My parents f.i. have detailed arrangements to prevent these kind of things. They handed copies of these documents to me to take care of just in case.
They're pretty old...