Advanced Care Planning

764 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: 10 core public health functions

The Public Health Imperative measures the quality of life of an individual during times of severe chronic illness. This health imperative is characterized by: the potential to prevent suffering caused by the illness, major impact, and high burden. In the recent past is has become evident that care for older people, who have potential to become terminally ill, must be focused on. The types of patients may also lose the capability to make some of their most important decisions which include actions made by health professionals that are related to their end of life situation. Luckily actions were made to identify certain priorities pertaining to the public health and end of life issues. These priorities were established by the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the Healthy Aging Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These end of life health priorities which address short-term, medium-term and long-term needs are also called advanced care planning. It can be concluded that communication between professionals and among families about the patient can enhance the effectiveness of advanced care planning. Two examples of Advance Care Directives, which are living wills that allow a person to document end of life medical treatment, are the FiveWishes and MyDirectives in the United States. The FiveWishes directive is described as living with a heart and soul and follows five wishes. These wishes include: the person which will make decisions regarding the patient’s health when the patient is not able to, the kind of medical treatment wanted and not wanted, the level of comfortability of the patient, how the patient is treated, and the amount of information that the patient’s loved ones know. The MyDirec... ... middle of paper ... ...tually talked about the subject several times however have not written anything down or come to a conclusion. He feels that since we are his children, we have some say in the matter. My friends can find benefit in Advanced Care Planning by creating such a will incase anything drastic happens to them and they are unable to discuss this matter in the aftermath of any type of accident. My colleagues can find benefit by spreading the word to their families, friends, and communities. As future health care professionals it is essential in maintaining the health of our community and playing an active role in society. Works Cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). Advance Care Planning: An Introduction for Public Health and Aging Services Professionals. Retrieved March 15, 2014, from http://www.cdc.gov/aging/advancecareplanning/care-planning-course.htm

Show More
Related

  • Terri Schiavo Interview

    1277 Words  | 3 Pages

    Once I explained exactly what a living will is because some were unaware they were very comfortable with the idea of filling out a living will. The responses that I got all varied to different degrees. My brother stated that he did not yet have a living will but that they are very important to have and everyone should get one. He said that his wishes would be to pretty much “pull the plug in every circumstance”. He absolutely did not want to be put on life support, be artificially supplied with food, or get life sustaining drugs, machines, or other medical procedures. My mother had wishes the same as I would have which is to consider the circumstances and give me a month to evaluate if I have the possibility of making a full recovery. If there is no hope of having a full recovery then I want all life sustaining measures to be stopped because I don’t in any way want to be a burden on

    Read More

  • Mrs. Boswell’s Dilemma

    1185 Words  | 3 Pages

    This ethical scenario presents an 86 year old female with numerous health issues and chronic illnesses. Mrs. Boswell’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease makes it extremely difficult to initiate dialysis, leading her physician to conclude a poor quality of life. The ethical dilemma portrayed in this case is between nonmaleficence and autonomy. Health care workers should focus on promoting the patient’s overall wellbeing and weigh the benefits and risks of the course of action, while also considering what the family declares they want done. Since the patient is deemed unable to make decisions, the goal is to collaborate with family, assess patient quality of life, address prognosis, and establish realistic care goals.

    Read More

  • Adolescents and the Choice of End of Life Care

    1458 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wiener, Lori, Elizabeth Ballard, Tara Brennan, Haven Battles, Pedro Martinez, and Maryland Pao. 2008. "How I wish to be remembered: the use of an advance care planning document in adolescent and young adult populations." Journal Of Palliative Medicine 11, no. 10: 1309-1313. MEDLINE with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed May 26, 2014).

    Read More

  • Advance Care Directives

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    When needing to use the advance care directive, it is important that the individual’s wishes be carried out by their proxy and their physicians, no matter what their own personal beliefs are. The last action that should be taken when considering end-of-life care is that is should be reassessed periodically. This is important because an individual may change their mind about what kind of care they would want to receive as they get older.

    Read More

  • Providing Quality Care for Patients with Dementia

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gideon A Caplan and Anne E Meller (december 2013). Advance care planning in aged care facilities. Australasian journal on ageing, 32(4), 202-203.

    Read More

  • social workers role in end of life care

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thanks in part to the scientific and technological advances of todays’ society, enhanced medicinal treatment options are helping people battle illnesses and diseases and live longer than ever before. Despite these advances, however, many people with life threatening illnesses have needs and concerns that are unidentified and therefore unmet at the end of life, notes Arnold, Artin, Griffith, Person and Graham (2006, p. 62). They further noted that when these needs and concerns remain unmet, due in part to the failure of providers to correctly evaluate these needs, as well as the patients’ reluctance to discuss them (p. 63, as originally noted by Heaven & Maguire, 1997), a patient’s quality of life may be adversely affected. According to Bosma et al. (2010, p. 84), “Many generalist social work skills regarding counseling, family systems, community resources, and psychosocial assessments are relevant to working with patients and families with terminal illness”, thereby placing social workers in the distinctive position of being able to support and assist clients with end of life decisions and care planning needs. In fact, they further noted that at some point, “most social work practitioners will encounter adults, children, and families who are facing progressive life limiting illness, dying, death, or bereavement” (p. 79).

    Read More

  • Advance Care Planning in Palliative Care

    3228 Words  | 7 Pages

    The first journal article is about advance care planning (ACP) in palliative care. This is of interest due to several clinical experiences and the realization that many families either ignore the patient’s request for end of life (EOL) care or who have no idea of how to plan for EOL care. By reading the research and understanding the methods used, this will allow for insight into how to implement palliative care into clinical practice across different sites. The authors of this original research are Jeanine Blackford PhD, RN, senior lecturer at La Trobe University in Australia, and Annette Street PhD, associate dean of research and professor of cancer and palliative care studies. According to Blackford & Street (2011), this research is important as there are many countries that “report a low percentage of people who have completed an advance care plan” (p. 2022), and ACP is needed upon admission to facilities that offer palliative care.

    Read More

  • Improving End-of-Life Care in The United States

    2060 Words  | 5 Pages

    End-of-life care in the United States is often fraught with difficult decisions and borne with great expense. Americans are often uncomfortable discussing death and

    Read More

  • DR): Advance Directive Or Advance Directive?

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    While navigating the abundant and sometimes confusing legal language of advance directives can be time consuming, it would benefit every person to consider their end of life wishes and have some form of written statement available for their doctor and family to understand those wishes. Doing this in advance can prevent emotional anguish, suffering and expensive litigation. In the end, clearly and when possible, written, documentation of a medical directive, a living will, or a chosen health care power of attorney will lessen the burden for the medical professionals and family of a dying or incapacitated person.

    Read More

  • Planning Patient Care

    2526 Words  | 6 Pages

    According to The Department of Health (2009) care planning is essentially about addressing an individual’s full range of needs. It takes into account their personal, social, economic, educational, cultural and mental health needs. After initially discussing this assignment with John

    Read More

  • Essay On End Of Life Care Plan

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    The care of patients at the end of their live should be as humane and respectful to help them cope with the accompanying prognosis of the end of their lives. The reality of this situation is that all too often, the care a patient receives at the end of their life is quite different and generally not performed well. The healthcare system of the United States does not perform well within the scope of providing the patient with by all means a distress and pain free palliative or hospice care plan. To often patients do not have a specific plan implemented on how they wish to have their end of life care carried out for them. End of life decisions are frequently left to the decision of family member's or physicians who may not know what the patient needs are beforehand or is not acting in the patient's best wishes. This places the unenviable task of choosing care for the patient instead of the patient having a carefully written out plan on how to carry out their final days. A strategy that can improve the rate of care that patients receive and improve the healthcare system in general would be to have the patient create a end of life care plan with their primary care physician one to two years prior to when the physician feels that the patient is near the end of their life. This would put the decision making power on the patient and it would improve the quality of care the patient receives when they are at the end of their life. By developing a specific care plan, the patient would be in control of their wishes on how they would like their care to be handled when the time of death nears. We can identify strengths and weakness with this strategy and implement changes to the strategy to improve the overall system of care with...

    Read More

  • Needs Assessment and SWOT Analysis

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    Timmreck, T. C. (2003). Planning, program development, and evaluation: A handbook for health promotion, aging, and health services. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett.

    Read More

  • Challenges of Health Care and the Aging Population

    1317 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kick, Ella. "Overview: Health Care and the Aging Population: What Are Today's Challenges?" The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. N.p., n.d. Web.

    Read More

  • Aging, Death, Dying and End of Life Care

    2419 Words  | 5 Pages

    THOMAS, K. and LOBO, B., 2011. Advance care planning in end of life care. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Read More

  • Death Is Inevitable For Everyone

    2584 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...letting go and to fight back. Whether against aging or illness, the idea of fighting disease at all costs literally costs the United States billions of dollars along with stressors to family members. Witnessing it first hand through Pappap, our family changed as a whole and we just finished paying the hospital bills – two years later. Although the idea may scare some people, the push or obligation of living wills has the opportunity to significantly affect the paradigm of our death denial culture. With this document established, each person in society for at least several minutes will acknowledge the fact that one day they will die. The timing will never be guaranteed, but death will. Advanced directives can possibly save financial burden and family stress in today’s culture of life. It will eliminate anxiety from proxies and prepare each person for their own death.

    Read More

More about Advanced Care Planning

Open Document