End-of-Life Decision Making for Empowered Patients
No matter how well we have approached our health and medical care as smart patients, the end of life presents us with challenges and opportunities that have not previously existed. Learning about those challenges, making decisions, recording them, and discussing them ahead of time benefits both the patient and his or her loved ones.
Sometimes beginning the conversation about what our end of life wishes are is the most difficult part. If we can just get past the first few sentences, it can send us on our way toward a very meaningful discussion. Here are some suggestions empowered About.com readers have made about how to start that difficult conversation.
Here is an overview of the step-by-step instructions for preparing your advance directives, including designation of your healthcare proxy, do-not-resuscitate order and living will.
You may have definite ideas of how you want to spend your last days of life, or you may not have thought about it much at all. This overview of the questions that arise at the end of life, how to determine your own answers, and then how to make them known to others through advance directives is discussed.
Having that all-important conversation with your loved ones about end of life choices isn't always easy. Here are some ways to kick start that conversation to help them understand your wishes, and to learn what their wishes would be.
In order to determine your wishes and communicate them to your loved ones and the others who need to know, you have to know the right questions to ask, and what the possible answers might be. This is the first step in determining the answers to prepare your advance directives.
Step Two in the process of making your final wishes known is to develop the documents needed for living wills, healthcare proxies and do-not-resuscitate orders. Laws vary by states and provinces, but the basics to the advance directive documents are the same.
Step Three in determining your end-of-life wishes is to make sure all the right people know you have made your decisions, and to know what they are and where to find any advance directives paperwork you have developed.
Step Four in determining your end-of-life wishes is to make sure the right people know about your decisions, and where they can find the advance directive paperwork needed.
What patients rights exist, including those at the end of life? Which ones don't exist? And what responsibilities do patients need to handle to ensure those rights?
Many parts of the human body can be transplanted to other people to help improve or extend life. Making the decision to become an organ or body donor should be considered as we think about our end of life wishes.
