Friday, April 17, 2015

Have you had conversations with your family about your end-of-life wishes?  Dying with dignity is a part of life well lived.  Most seriously ill patients are unable to express their wishes and also are unable to communicate any suffering at the end of life.  In more than 88% of doctor-patient- family conferences during serious illness, there was no conversation about the patient’s own values and wishes. (Critical Care Medicine April 2015).

Decisions about using life support (breathing machines, dialysis, transfusions etc) usually hinge on trade-offs between the length and quality of life.  And they are influenced on the person’s understanding of their expected level of function, independence and comfort.   But most people who are critically ill are incapacitated and therefore the family members try to make the decisions for them.  So does your family REALLY understand what you would want?  And do you understand the implications of the life-support treatments?


You can be comfortable and have your wishes carried out but only if you take the right steps now.  Talk with your family.  We all will die, but some of us will have a plan in place to die in comfort.  You can too!