Dec 10
2

End-of-Life Care: The issues we face

By | End-of-life care | 2 Comments

The American Psychological Association (APA) has prepared and published an “End-of-Life Care Fact Sheet,” making it available as an open source document. It tries to answer the question – What are older adults’ mental health needs near the end of life?

The document, prepared by Sharon Valente, RN, PhD, FAAN, in collaboration with the other members of the APA Ad Hoc Committee on End-of-Life Issues, addresses many issues of concern to FEN members and provides references for the information and opinions it offers.

While the APA does not take a position on assisted dying, such as the laws that allow a physician to provide a lethal prescription to a terminally ill patient, as can be done in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, California, Colorado, and the District of Columbia (and is permitted in Montana by court decision), it does recognize the many perspectives on the issue of hastened death or rational suicide that exist in the US population.

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Dec 03
2

Analyzing two advance directives for dementia and VSED from EOLW

By | Dementia | One Comment

As I have stated previously in these posts, I do not intend to allow myself to live far into the condition we term dementia, should that fate befall me. However, we never know what might happen to thwart our intentions, which is why I have chosen to use advance directives as creatively as possible to prevent being forced to live a life that I find intolerable and inhumane. This is why I welcome any efforts to create the circumstances that allow everyone to have the lives and deaths they want.

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Nov 27
0

Finding the final arrangements you want and can afford

By | Funeral Planning | One Comment

When contemplating what you want when it comes to the disposition of your body, it helps to go in with the understanding that very few services are required by law. Whether you choose a simple cremation with no ceremony, body burial preceded by a conventional funeral, or donating your body to anatomical study, the legal requirements that must be fulfilled at death are so minimal most people are surprised. And this holds true in every state in the country. If you’re willing to clear your mind of what you think you have to do for a funeral, your planning will go more smoothly and more quickly.

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Nov 20
0

A break for Thanksgiving

By | Gratitude | 3 Comments

While not everyone who reads this message, because of their own circumstances, will feel like being thankful this week, I thought I would take a break from our usual discussions to share a few thoughts that my own family has embraced for several years on Thanksgiving. It is an incomplete and changing list of some of the things we have to be thankful for, with a measure of reality thrown in to keep us from feeling too smug about being Americans, or living in America. The thoughts are intentionally not sectarian or religious. I hope they have a universal human quality about them.

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Nov 13
0

Finding and being a good (or great) health care advocate

By | Advance Directives, Healthcare Power of Attorney, Healthcare Proxy, Surrogate | 5 Comments

One problem with advance directives is that often they are not honored. It is critical that you have a good advocate who demands that you get only the care you want and do not get what is not wanted, not only at end of life but at any time you encounter a medical institution. You will need to choose someone who meets the legal requirements to act as a health care or medical agent, which some states call a proxy, surrogate, or representative. I call this person your “advocate.” State requirements differ greatly, so be sure to use your state’s forms for naming a health care or medical agent, not generic documents like the “5 wishes.”

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Nov 05
0

ALS and the End-of-Life Choice

By | ALS | 3 Comments

Once ALS starts, it almost always progresses, eventually taking away the ability to walk, dress, write, speak, swallow, and breathe and shortening the life span. How fast and in what order this occurs is very different from person to person. While the average survival time is 3 years, about twenty percent of people with ALS live five years, 10 percent will survive ten years and five percent will live 20 years or more.

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Oct 29
2

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 4

By | Dementia | 4 Comments

Following is my Supplemental Directive. I do not consider it to be superior to any other, nor do I suggest that anyone copy it, though everyone is welcome to use any of it that suits their needs. I offer it merely as an example of what can be done. Referring to posts 1 through 3 on this topic should clarify the reasons for my choices. You will judge how well I have resolved the issues. I welcome ideas, critiques, and comments to improve my efforts.

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Oct 22
0

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 3

By | Dementia | 2 Comments

 “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
                                                                                — John Stuart Mill

The United States Constitution and the common law (along with some state constitutions) give us the right to make directives that control the health services we receive if we become mentally incapacitated. The instructions provided by most states in the statutory forms that have been approved since the late 1980s do not limit us. We can write non-statutory directives I call “supplemental directives” when they are attached to and referenced in the statutory directives. We can also write our own health care directives without using statutory forms (an issue to be discussed in a subsequent post).

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Oct 16
2

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 2

By | Dementia | 3 Comments

In Part 1 of this essay, I introduced two competing arguments concerning using advance directives to control what is done to our bodies should we become mentally incompetent.

As explained previously, the sole purpose of advance directives is to record one’s decisions about medical and related care if a person becomes unable to make such decisions later because of mental incapacity. To explain the range of options that are available both before and after such incapacity, I’ll use a personal example.

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