With no end in sight to the controversy about whether doctors should be paid to discuss end-of-life options with patients, we thought now was as good a time as any to review the possibilities for care before you die.
Only about a quarter of adults have advance directives in place. The term refers to two types of documents: a living will that instructs people what medical measures to take, if any, to prolong your life, and a health care power of attorney that designates someone to make medical decisions for you if you can't. States call these documents by different names, but their functions are similar.
On the relatively infrequent occasions when people do sign advance directive documents, they're usually thinking about what they would want in a crisis: a heart attack, say, or routine surgery that goes terribly wrong. Most of us don't think about the long, slow decline that may occur with Alzheimer’s disease, for example, that robs people just as surely of their ability to make choices as a medical emergency.
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Any questions, please drop me a line.
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Andrew Lopez, RN
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