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Seeking help with an advance directive is valuable for several reasons. Creating and understanding an advance directive can be a complex process, and involving professionals and trusted individuals can ensure that your document accurately reflects your wishes and is legally valid. Here are some key reasons why seeking help with an advance directive is important:
By seeking help with your advance directive, you can ensure that your document accurately represents your wishes, complies with legal requirements, and provides clear guidance to your loved ones and healthcare providers during critical moments.
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Understanding the terms used in an advance directive is crucial to ensure that you accurately convey your medical treatment preferences and wishes.
Here are explanations for some key terms commonly found in advance directives:
It's important to clarify any terms you find confusing with legal and medical professionals when creating or reviewing your advance directive. This ensures that you fully understand the implications of the choices you are making and that your directive accurately reflects your wishes. An advance directive typically includes a range of instructions, preferences, and decisions related to your medical care and treatment in case you become unable to communicate or make decisions for yourself.
The specific components of an advance directive can vary depending on your jurisdiction and personal preferences, but they generally include the following elements:
It's important to note that while these are common components of an advance directive, the specific details and requirements can vary by location and personal circumstances. It's recommended to consult with legal and medical professionals when creating or updating your advance directive to ensure that it accurately reflects your wishes and is legally valid. Advance directives are also commonly known as:
Updating an advance directive is essential to ensure that your medical treatment preferences and wishes accurately reflect your current values and circumstances. There are several situations and events that might prompt you to review and update your advance directive:
Advance directives are legal documents that allow individuals to express their preferences and wishes regarding medical treatment and care in case they become unable to communicate or make decisions for themselves. These directives are important for several reasons and offer significant value:
"This study is evidence of what can go wrong when doctors, patients and families fail to have frank and open communication about end-of-life care. It is also, in the clarion call of its conclusion, a first step toward refocusing care on treatments that are more likely to benefit patients".
This study (click button below)shows that "far too often, patients in intensive care, receive what their own doctors judged to be futile care.....because the burdens grossly outweigh benefits, patient will never survive outside an ICU, patient is permanently unconscious, treatment cannot achieve the patient's goals, or death is imminent". Does this kind of scenario sit well with you? Is this what you would want? Whom do you want to make your treatment decisions, when facing end-of-life? Whom is the best person to make these medical choices? Read article and then ask yourselves, how you can be in charge of your own medical, emotional and spiritual EOL decisions. According to this publication in the National Library of Medicine, the Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People, have drawn up five priorities for the dying. They five priorities focus on:
Recognizing that someone is dying Communicating sensitively with them and their family Involving them in decisions Supporting them and their family Creating an individual plan of care that includes adequate nutrition and hydration. The emphasis of these five priorities is to improve the standard of care and to provide dignified and compassionate care. According to the National Library of Medicine and this article states that making sure a patient's wishes are respected is crucial and by doing so, it can relieve the dying of unnecessary burdens.
"Most patients want frank information from their physicians about their condition at all times over the course of their treatment, from the moment of diagnosis to the end of their life. This has no lasting adverse effects, but rather enables patients to take decisions that are appropriate to their stage of disease". "Patients should be enabled to issue directives that reflect their wishes, as well as to choose representatives who are allowed to speak for them. Consideration should also be given to the patient’s emotional legacy, e.g., letters or video messages with personal content". "In principle, it is always an important matter to make provisions for one’s own death, to consider the various questions associated with it, and to put one’s thoughts in writing". "Death is not always brought on by a progressive illness that gives the sufferer the time to deal with the subject thoroughly". "This article provides an overview of the final matters that must be considered in the last phase of an adult patient’s life. These final matters include everything that ensures the patient’s wishes will be respected up to the moment of death and beyond it, as well as everything that can support the patient’s family as they deal with their loss". |
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