How you can ensure your last rights
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BUILD A TEAM
It's not enough to draft a living will. You have to make sure the people closest to you are aware of it and your desires. Make sure your loved ones and doctors know about your living will and what measures should or shouldn't be taken to keep you alive. Think of your family and doctors as a team that is there to ensure that your last rights are granted.
HAVE THE TALK
It's not easy, but you must do it. Designate a person to make decisions
for you if you are unable to make them for yourself, and discuss these
issues with that person. Also, have this discussion with your doctors
and loved ones. Myriad groups offer a number of tools and checklists
to help guide and prompt conversations. (Click
here for additional resources.)
DO THE PAPERWORK
Make sure you have a living will. Opinions vary over the value of advance
directives or living wills and how specific they must be, but it's still
something you should do. A written document can help avoid conflict
in a grieving family. Most advocates urge people to give at least one
copy to their regular doctor and copies to their health care surrogate
and a backup person.
CHOOSING HOSPICE
CARE
Even with planning, designated decision-makers and a supportive, informed
family, few patients are ready for the choices that follow a terminal
diagnosis. By most accounts, hospice programs are the most likely to
give dying patients and their families the opportunity to live as fully
as possible.
UNDERSTANDING
THE ALTERNATIVES
For practical and personal reasons, hospice doesn't work for everyone.
Only about 15 percent of the more than 2 million Americans who die each
year are in hospice. Hospitals remain the place most of us die, and
will for some time. That often requires more vigilance on the part of
patients and families. Resources for the dying can be found in hospitals,
but often doctors still focus on cures and nurses concentrate on the
care of the moment. Families may need to seek out chaplains, counselors,
social workers or discharge coordinators to ensure all needs are met.
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REMEMBER WHY
The whole point of comfort care is to let people who are dying do a
little living, allow them and their families, or surrogate families,
a chance to laugh and cry and remember. While the models for "good deaths''
are often those that bring peace and closure surrounded by families,
no one size fits all. Some people set goals -- to complete a project
or live to a birthday or a birth or a wedding. Many care teams tell
stories about patients who rallied to reach such milestones. Other patients
may focus so much on those they're leaving behind that they neglect
to grieve for themselves.
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