Nov 13
0

Finding and being a good (or great) health care advocate

By | Advance Directives, Healthcare Power of Attorney, Healthcare Proxy, Surrogate | 5 Comments

One problem with advance directives is that often they are not honored. It is critical that you have a good advocate who demands that you get only the care you want and do not get what is not wanted, not only at end of life but at any time you encounter a medical institution. You will need to choose someone who meets the legal requirements to act as a health care or medical agent, which some states call a proxy, surrogate, or representative. I call this person your “advocate.” State requirements differ greatly, so be sure to use your state’s forms for naming a health care or medical agent, not generic documents like the “5 wishes.”

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Nov 05
0

ALS and the End-of-Life Choice

By | ALS | 3 Comments

Once ALS starts, it almost always progresses, eventually taking away the ability to walk, dress, write, speak, swallow, and breathe and shortening the life span. How fast and in what order this occurs is very different from person to person. While the average survival time is 3 years, about twenty percent of people with ALS live five years, 10 percent will survive ten years and five percent will live 20 years or more.

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Oct 29
2

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 4

By | Dementia | 4 Comments

Following is my Supplemental Directive. I do not consider it to be superior to any other, nor do I suggest that anyone copy it, though everyone is welcome to use any of it that suits their needs. I offer it merely as an example of what can be done. Referring to posts 1 through 3 on this topic should clarify the reasons for my choices. You will judge how well I have resolved the issues. I welcome ideas, critiques, and comments to improve my efforts.

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Oct 22
0

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 3

By | Dementia | 2 Comments

 “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
                                                                                — John Stuart Mill

The United States Constitution and the common law (along with some state constitutions) give us the right to make directives that control the health services we receive if we become mentally incapacitated. The instructions provided by most states in the statutory forms that have been approved since the late 1980s do not limit us. We can write non-statutory directives I call “supplemental directives” when they are attached to and referenced in the statutory directives. We can also write our own health care directives without using statutory forms (an issue to be discussed in a subsequent post).

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Oct 16
2

Using advance directives to control what happens to us after mental incapacity, PART 2

By | Dementia | 3 Comments

In Part 1 of this essay, I introduced two competing arguments concerning using advance directives to control what is done to our bodies should we become mentally incompetent.

As explained previously, the sole purpose of advance directives is to record one’s decisions about medical and related care if a person becomes unable to make such decisions later because of mental incapacity. To explain the range of options that are available both before and after such incapacity, I’ll use a personal example.

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Oct 01
1

Mental health, suffering, and a “Good Death”

By | Final Exit Network, Suffering and Death | One Comment

Usually, when we talk about suffering, we are thinking of physical suffering. But there are many people with severe, unresolved, debilitating mental illness who can find no relief from their suffering – suffering that is just as real (though its cause is different) as that experienced, for instance, by a patient at the end stages of pancreatic cancer, or a patient dying of metastasized prostate cancer. And none of the existing programs and services can help those with unrelenting mental illness die a peaceful death – a good death – to put an end to their suffering.

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Sep 25
1

A response to disability rights activists’ opposition to the right to die, PART 2

By | Disability, Disability Rights, Not Dead Yet | One Comment

In Part 1, I began explaining why the disability rights group Not Dead Yet opposes Death With Dignity laws and the right to die. I also provided the most recent data from Oregon’s experience with its DWDA to refute some of the claims of Not Dead Yet.

All of the arguments made against the DWD laws by Not Dead Yet are false or misleading.

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Sep 17
2

A response to disability rights activists’ opposition to the right to die, PART 1

By | Choice, Death With Dignity Act, Disability, Disability Rights, Not Dead Yet | No Comments

Five years ago in Massachusetts, the right to autonomy in one’s body went down to defeat in a vote related to irrational fear by some disability rights advocates working through the activist group Not Dead Yet. Their position was that they would be compelled or coerced into ending their own lives if the initiative passed.

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Sep 11
4

A toast “to life” may include the wish for a peaceful death

By | Advance Directives, Death With Dignity Act, DNR, End-of-life care, Final Exit Network, Hospice | 2 Comments

Nearly everyone hopes for a peaceful death; yet such an end can be elusive. Many of us face both philosophical and practical questions as we do what we can to make our own deaths peaceful.

Some of us may have religious questions. Judaism, like many other religions, is all over the map in its thinking about ways to achieve a peaceful death.

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