Advance Directives in Nursing Homes

Advance care planning in nursing homes: correlates of capacity and possession of advance directives.

PURPOSE The identification of nursing home residents who can continue to participate in advance care planning about end-of-life care is a critical clinical and bioethical issue. This study uses high quality observational research to identify correlates of advance care planning in nursing homes, including objective measurement of capacity. DESIGN AND METHODS The authors used cross-sectional, c...

Artificial nutrition, advance directives and end of life in nursing homes

Advance Directives in the Context of Uncertain Prognosis for Residents of Nursing Homes

This report documents the findings of a mixed-methods study focused on the advanced directives of 182 residents of three LTC facilities in southern Ontario, Canada. Although almost all had a completed advance directive within 3 months of death, most did not have a palliative designation or directive until a few days before they died. Each facility’s written Progress Notes revealed staff members...

Do Advance Directives Direct?

Resolution of long-standing debates about the role and impact of advance directives - living wills and powers of attorney for health care - has been hampered by a dearth of appropriate data, in particular data that compare the process and outcomes of end-of-life decision making on behalf of patients with and without advance directives. Drawing on a large ethnographic study of patients in two in...

Advance directives and older people: ethical challenges in the promotion of advance directives in New Zealand.

In New Zealand an advance directive can be either an oral statement or a written document. Such directives give individuals the opportunity to make choices about future medical treatment in the event they are cognitively impaired or otherwise unable to make their preferences known. All consumers of health care have the right to make an advance directive in accordance with the common law. When w...