ADVANCED DIRECTIVES:

When asked “How do you see yourself dying?,” most people reply, “surrounded by my loved ones at home, in peace.”

Advance directives can help fulfill end-of-life wishes by spelling out a patient’s wishes for healthcare should he or she become too ill to communicate.

Medical professionals agree that directives help make a patient’s decisions and wishes clear, and are especially meaningful during complicated and emotional times. Without advance directives, family members are left guessing about critical medical decisions.

The Denver Hospice recommends the booklet Five Wishes which is a living will that talks about personal, emotional and spiritual needs as well medical wishes.  Five Wishes lets you say exactly how you wish to be treated if you get seriously ill.  It was written with the help of the American Bar Association’s Commission on the Legal Problems of the Elderly and meets requirements under the law of most states including Colorado.

Five Wishes, produced by Aging with Dignity, is for anyone 18 or older – married, single, parents, adult children and friends.  More than six million Americans already have used it.  Lawyers, doctors, hospitals and hospices, faith communities, employers and retiree groups regularly hand out the document.

The Five Wishes include a person’s wish for:

• The person you want to make care decisions for you when you can’t
• The kind of medical treatment you want or don’t want
• How comfortable you want to be
• How you want people to treat you
• What you want your loved ones to know

For a copy of Five Wishes, contact The Denver Hospice, (303) 321-2828.  Other forms about directives and policies are available on The Denver Hospice web site www.thedenverhospice.org under Downloadable Forms/Policies.