Have Advance Directives Failed?

The challenge America now faces is the number of people reaching retirement will double in number by 2030, and the U.S. population will increase almost 20 percent ("Our Aging Nation," 2015). The goal is for the elderly to maintain and live with independence and dignity, as well as, provide a wide range of professional health and social service expertise, home care, and residential support and services that will be needed ("Our Aging Nation," 2015). Since the number of caregivers needed for this population will not be able to meet the demands other resolutions are considered necessary.

A person’s life can end at any age. They can depart quickly or slowly. End of life care, also known as palliative care, is the care of patients that are not only in their final hours or days but the patients with a terminal illness that has become incurable. End of life care takes into mind what the patient desires so it is recommended that they consider an advanced care plan also known as an advance directive and living will. These documents allow the patient to formulate decisions on the future of their care if, at any point, they cannot vocally express themselves.

Taking care of the individuals that are getting older takes many different needs. Most of these needs cannot be given from the help of a family. This causes the need of having to put your love one into a home and causing for the worry of how they will be treated. It is important for the family and also the soon to be client to feel at home in their new environment. This has been an issue with the care being provided for each individual, which has lead to the need of making sure individuals have their own health care plan.

The increased use of advanced directives, such as do-not-resuscitate orders, has made discussions on end-of-life care much easier for patients and professionals alike.

The Federal Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) of 1991 first brought attention to the importance of advance directives (GAPNA, n.d.). Although regulatory bodies continue to promote advance directives, little has been done to encourage and enforce this initiative, highlighting the need for directed efforts to improve AD completion rates. The overall prevalence of completed advance directives in the United has been estimated that 5-15% (Tung & North, 2009). This indicates a need for programs to educate and empower patients and providers to ensure that dialogue about advanced care planning is initiated early on, and that advance directives are completed. Studies have shown that patients prefer that their primary care doctor initiate such planning while they are in good health and that such planning should occur earlier than it did in terms of age, natural history of disease, and patient-physician relationship. The barriers to advance care planning that have been identified include availability of trained staff, organizational commitment and policy to support advance care planning, and understanding/support of providers (Ramsaroop, Reid, & Adelman, 2007).

Other barriers in implementation might include the legality of certain medical interventions, associated costs and limited resources for providing the best care possible (Mason, 2013, p.12). As nurses, a barrier in implementing advance directives might also arise when advocated end-of-life wishes are undervalued or poorly recognized by others who do not share the same comfort or high priority in the medical workplace. Finally, the patient, families, and healthcare professionals face barriers in misconceptions regarding advance directives, especially in regards to

On the same token, it’s recommended that adult children also have a living will, aka an advance care directive, which outlines a person’s wishes about life-extending medical treatment, as well as other intentions, such as organ donations. This document takes effect when the doctor declares that the patient lacks the capacity to make their own health care

Tennessee law on advanced directives is a document that tells your family, friends, and doctors on how you want to be treated in an emergency. Advance directive can be a document or a living will in which you state the plan of care when you are no longer able to communicate treatment choices or decision. Advance directives is not only for the elderly but it can be at any age even if you are not sick at the time of the document. This document list the details of treatment that you want implemented if a serious incident was to happen. It would tell what interventions should be used in your care. Some of the choices would include a full status code where the patient wants CPR or a do not resistant code can be used for treatment. The client can also have the option of limited interventions with each code status. It would include artificial ventilation or artificial feeding and any type of tubes associated with your treatment. The client can also be specific if he or she wants just medical treatment only including the use of drug therapy. In this paper, we will look at Tennessee law and various

This film explains the legal role of advance directives in end of life issues. An advance directive is “a written document directing how medical decisions are to be made in the future when the patient lacks decisional capacity and is unable to decide and choose” (Hanlon, End of Life Issues, Slide 28, Bullet 1). All three of the cases demonstrate the importance in filling out some form of directive. When there is nothing to go off of, it makes decisions extremely tough for families and medical providers. Having legal documentation of patient wishes helps understand what treatments they would or would not consent to. In cases like

In the older patient that has planned for end-stage diagnosis, an advance directive provides a means to articulate patient requests. However, in the patient who has sustained

With an increasing aging population and growing numbers of individuals with chronic conditions, it is important for individuals to prepare for end-of-life care. An Advance Directive is a defined as a “legal document that provides data to critical care staff about patients’ wishes, especially when critical illness decreases decision-making ability” (McAdam, Stotts, Padilla, and Puntillo, 2005). An Advance Directive also allows for better communication between the patient and doctor, and preserves the autonomy of patients. It may also alleviate one’s family from any possible burden of uncertainty of one’s wishes. It provides guidance, which may avert arguments with family members concerning treatment choices (Cedars Sinai, 2015). The Patient

Advance Directives are our wishes when we are at end of life stages of life that give specific direction of how, who, and when to treat us in our final days and hours. We can have documents drawn up to say what we want in the event we are in a state where we cannot voice our wishes aloud. These documents have legal and ethical basis, and they should be followed unless the legally or ethically unable to do so.

A. D. was a sixty-six-year-old Caucasian male who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor. The tumor was surgically removed, and he was currently undergoing chemotherapy.

Living Wills, sometimes called Advanced Directives, are legal documents accepted in all 50 states. They clearly define a person’s wish to decline life-support or medical treatment in certain circumstances, usually when death is imminent. Generally, a living will takes effect when a person becomes terminally ill, permanently unconscious or conscious with irreversible brain damage.

End-of life treatment has been one of the most controversial issues and has gained significant attention over the past years. Legislation passed in 1990 (Patient Self-Determination Act) was implemented to protect the patient and the family’s self-determination and autonomy (McInnis-Dittrich, 2014). Advanced directives guide decision-making and the goal is