Another side track but this time perhaps related to this thread... Pip, my mother, was a physiotherapist dealing with the elderly in most of her career. In her case, we are not talking things like heart surgery but maybe things like a hip replacement on an 80+yr old.

I believe debates such as risks and even whether such an op is worthwhile on someone so old is worth it existed but Pip believed in it and had the pleasure of helping to rehabilitate a few people who had a new found freedom of mobility and from pain.