Advance directives: what's in a form?

A case for advance directives.

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...

Advance directives for truth disclosure.

INTRODUCTION Although most patients wish to be fully informed about bad news such as a diagnosis of cancer, a significant minority prefer no or minimal information. We examined the value of asking patients about their disclosure preferences at the outset of hospitalization. METHODS Consecutive patients admitted to a respiratory and a geriatric unit were asked whether and how they would wish t...

Law, autonomy and advance directives.

The principle of autonomy underpins legal regulation of advance directives that refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. The primacy of autonomy in this domain is recognised expressly in the case law, through judicial pronouncement, and implicitly in most Australian jurisdictions, through enactment into statute of the right to make an advance directive. This article seeks to justify autonomy a...