My mother is old, and not currently dying, but clearly dying in the non-current sense.
But damn, she perked up when they gave her EPO (after radiation and chemotherapy).
I know that EPO can kill you, but I think she’d be willing to take that for the chance to be alive for some of the remaining time.
Does anybody ever do blood doping for old people?
Sure, if they’ve got a case of symptomatic anemia that will respond to erythropoietin. Like anemia due to chemo, chronic kidney disease, myelodysplastic syndromes, etc.
But it’s not a benign drug. It carries a high risk of causing stroke, heart attack, thromboembolisms, and just an overall increased risk of dying while on it. So the benefit has to outweigh the risk.
Anabolic steroids have also been used in the elderly. Growth hormone too.
Which makes sense since performance enhancing drugs can increase muscle mass, recovery time, energy, stamina, etc. All issues the elderly have problems with.
However weighing risk vs reward isn’t easy. Even in young and healthy people these drugs cause a lot of side effects.