“What do you value most about your life?” asks Sarah Adamson, a social worker with HCI Hospice Care Services.
Adamson works with hospice patients and their families as they face life-limiting illness and plan for the days ahead.
“When we talk to our patients and their families about what matters most to them, it can open up a conversation about their future healthcare wishes,” Adamson said. “For example, if living with as much activity, independence and social interaction as possible is more important to a patient than longevity of life, it can affect the types of choices they make regarding their healthcare wishes.”
When put into writing, those healthcare wishes can become advance directives – documents that provide guidance and instructions for those entrusted with a loved one’s care.
Advance directives are legal documents that allow people to give directions for their medical care, should they become unable to speak for themselves. There are several types of advance directive documents; two major documents used in Iowa are the durable power of attorney for healthcare (DPOAH) and the living will.
In a DPOAH document, an individual can appoint a person to make decisions about his or her medical care if he or she is unable to make those decisions due to illness or injury.
A living will enables an individual to describe his or her wishes about the administration of medical treatment or life-sustaining procedures if he or she becomes unable to communicate due to a serious or terminal condition.
Both types of advance directives only go into effect if a person is unable to communicate his or her wishes. People who are lucid or able can make their own healthcare decisions – even if those decisions contradict their advance directives.
In light of National Healthcare Decisions Day, which was April 16, HCI Hospice Care Services offers free advance directive forms and a step-by-step planning document on its website at www.hcicareservices.org or call HCI Hospice Care Services at 641-464-2088 to request an advance directive packet.