Whether intentionally or inadvertently, a recent article in the Washington Post, written by a reporter with Kaiser Health News, provides confusing, incomplete, misleading, and perhaps inaccurate information about the choices a person with dementia may have. It dismisses legal issues by citing opinions from non-legal professionals.
On this blog, we have dealt often with aspects of advance directives. To prepare for using a dementia directive, readers may benefit from a discussion of the development of advance directives and problems with their language. References to several dementia directives or supplements are provided.
Prof. Thaddeus Mason Pope explains the newly-effective Nevada advance directive that allows dementia patients to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED) after loss of cognitive capacity, and suggests how it may be used in some other states.
Two weeks ago, I spoke to about twenty people at the regular weekly meeting of the Ethical Society of Austin (Texas). The topic was the seven choices available to a person who becomes afflicted with dementia. I began by asking what, for them, are the characteristics of a "good death." In about ten minutes, the group offered ideas that suggest a "good death" is a viable option, with some universal characteristics, in spite of some voices to the contrary.
The earlier five-part series looking at Thaddeus Pope's analysis of the risks faced by clinicians who do not follow the advance directives of their patients has been augmented by a case that was recently settled for $1 million. The settlement was reported on March 28, 2019, in the North Coast Journal, Humboldt County, California.
In the previous five posts, I discussed Professor Thaddeus Pope's legal research on life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT) and end-of-life medical care. Two important points about advance directives (ADs) are not covered in Professor Pope's treatise because they are not issues that are normally litigated.
In Part 4 of this review of Professor Thaddeus Pope's analysis of liability for a clinician's providing unwanted life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT), the focus is on on why clinicians perceive that not following a patient's preferences about end-of-life care carries little risk for them and looking at more recent successful causes of action against clinicians.
In this, Part 3 of my review of Professor Thaddeus Pope's paper about the legal issues surrounding unwanted life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT), I focus on problems with advance directives (ADs).
Lamar Hankins shares his notes taken from a lecture by Professor Thaddeus Pope, who spoke on the topic "Avoiding Advanced Dementia with a VSED Directive" for the Hemlock Society of San Diego.
