Casey Kasem's Daughter Has the Power, But Will She Use It?

The end is coming for radio and TV icon Casey Kasem.

He's suffering from dementia and bedsores, and his body is shutting down at a hospital in Washington state, court documents say.

 

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles County judge gave daughter Kerri Kasem the authority to have doctors end his infusions of water, food and medicine.

 

The ruling reinstates the 82-year-old's end-of-life health directive.

 

Kasem's doctor concluded that continuing the artificial nutrition and hydration would only "at best prolong the dying process for him and will certainly add suffering to an already terribly uncomfortable dying process," said Kerri Kasem's lawyer, Troy Martin.

 

"The court's decision today upheld our father's explicit wishes as expressed by him in his health directive," Kerri Kasem said in a statement after the hearing. She was referring to a directive her father signed in 2007, saying he would not want to be kept alive if it "would result in a mere biological existence, devoid of cognitive function, with no reasonable hope for normal functioning."

 

Steve Haney, an attorney for Kasem's second wife, Jean, slammed the judge's decision, calling it "the functional equivalent of a death sentence."

 

"Nobody wants Mr. Kasem to die," Martin said. "The fact is that he is dying from sepsis and dementia."

 

What's next?

Now that Kerri Kasem can order doctors to withhold water, food and medicine from her father, will she?

 

She has before.

Over the weekend, infusions were stopped, but they were reinstated Monday after a request by Jean Kasem and under the order of Judge Daniel Murphy -- the same judge who reversed himself and restored the authority to Kerri Kasem on Wednesday.

 

The family has made no announcement about his care.

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Casey Kasem's Daughter Has The Power, But Will She Use It?