Advanced care planning is the practice of thinking, talking, and sharing your thoughts and wishes about final healthcare decisions. These decisions focus on the care you would want if you were unable to speak for yourself. This process involves those closest to you, including family, friends and your doctor.
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Steps for Advanced Care Planning
Consider the nature of planning
Although planning is important, the process of advanced care planning may feel awkward or unnatural given the sensitive nature of the topic. Before starting, consider the following to help feel more comfortable and set yourself up for success.
You may feel uncomfortable: Remind yourself of the benefits of advance care planning before and during the process.
Understand the alternative: If you have not made end-of-life care plans and you aren’t able to speak for yourself, someone may be assigned to make decisions on your behalf. There’s no guarantee the decisions will reflect your preferences or beliefs.
Provides peace of mind: By making your decisions clear in advance, you’ll help prevent conflict among family members and create peace of mind.
Take small steps: You don’t necessarily need to do it all at once. Concentrate on completing one step at a time.
Focus on what’s important to you:
Planning for the future is the best way to ensure your thoughts, beliefs, values and wishes are respected.
5 steps to planning ahead
1) Understand treatment options
Before you can make any decisions about care, it’s important to understand the emergency, life-sustaining treatments you would, or would not like, to receive. These treatment options may include:
- CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) - This technique is an emergency lifesaving procedure performed when the heart stops beating.
- Ventilator - A machine to help your body breath by pushing the air in and out of the lungs
- Artificial nutrition and hydration - This treatment involves giving the body liquids and food via a tube inserted into the body
- Treatment for new conditions (e.g., infection, cancer)
- Palliative care (e.g., hospice)
2) Choose someone to speak for you if needed
A healthcare agent (also called a healthcare proxy or surrogate) is someone who will make decisions for you when you might not be able to do so. Consider someone who is:
- Comfortable talking about end-of-life care
- Calm during a crisis
- Not afraid to ask questions and seek counsel
- Able to talk to your family
3) Complete advance care documents
Each state is different, but there are usually two pieces to an advance care plan:
Advance directive, or living will – This is a written document that tells doctors how you want to be treated if you are unable to make decisions.
Durable power of attorney (DPA) for healthcare – A legal document naming your healthcare agent, surrogate, or proxy. Each state has its own version of these two documents, so make sure you read them carefully and understand them completely. Consult with an attorney if you have any questions or need help.
4) Share your choices with others
Consider providing copies of your advance directive with the following people:
- Healthcare agent, proxy or surrogate
- Primary care provider
- Medical specialist(s)
- Hospital
- Faith leader
Make sure your loved ones are aware of your chosen healthcare representative and your end-of-life care wishes. Ensure that your loved ones understand your decisions by voicing your own personal concerns, values, spiritual beliefs or views about what makes life worth living.
If you’re looking for an opportunity to talk about advanced care planning, the following instances may prove to be helpful conversation starters:
- A recent death or funeral
- Family gatherings
- Movies, TV shows or news events on this topic
- Newspaper and magazine articles
5) Update when needed
Situations change, so you may need to update your advance care documents sometimes. Some reasons you may need to update documents including a change in your health, residency, your healthcare agent or proxy, or a divorce of death of a healthcare agent.
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