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It's Your Choice

Throughout your life you have been making important personal choices about where you live, your home, who you want to marry, what kind of career you aspire to, and so on. And yet, one of the most important personal choices facing you is your choice for future medical care when you are not able to communicate your wishes. Who decides when enough is enough? You do. Or at least, you should. It is important to decide what kind of care you want when you are capable of making your own decisions.

Three Scenarios…

Imagine that without warning, you come down with a life-threatening illness. You are in a hospital intensive care unit. Despite the best medical treatment, your physicians believe that it is unlikely you will return to your previous quality of life. You are no longer able to communicate with anyone. Your heartbeat and breathing can only be prolonged with artificial life support.

Imagine your ability to make your own decisions is gone and you live at a nursing home. You can feed yourself but you no longer know who you are, who your family members are, or what happens from one moment to the next. You will never regain your ability to communicate meaningfully with others, and will likely become worse over time.

Imagine you have a progressive chronic illness. Your health care team has told you that you may lose your ability to swallow and breathe on your own.

If you were in one of these situations, what would you want your doctor to do for you? And what treatment would you not want your doctor to do?

Why Advance Care Planning is so valuable

Important questions that you will want to decide now, is whether you wish to prolong your life with medical treatments offered by your physician, even if such treatments may include an array of medications, surgery, or feeding tubes.

Or would your choice be to make sure you are kept comfortable and maintain the highest level of function possible? Your physician could recommend a wide range of medical approaches. In most instances, comfort can be maintained with medications to control pain and other symptoms.

Talking to your family and friends now about what level of care you do and do not want in the future, will decrease their anxiety and help them to feel confident about your decisions, when they need to make decisions for you.

Other goals might include planning for things that allow you to live well.

The Future

None of us knows what the future holds for us. Many people lose the ability to say what they want when a health crisis occurs. It is a good idea for everyone to think about how they would like to be taken care of, should a situation like this happen. Your family and friends, and your health care providers, need to know your ideas about the kind of care you want.

Advance care planning is a way for people to reflect on their personal values and beliefs as well as make their own future health care choices, while they can do so. It is important to be able to communicate wishes and values to your loved ones or substitute decision makers, and document your choices, so that health care providers are fully aware of your personal choices at a time of life, when it may not be easy for you to understand and communicate those choices.

Reflect on what's important to you

The term, ‘substitute decision maker’ refers to a person chosen to make personal care choices that you would make, if you were unable to; often a spouse, a son, or daughter, or other relative.

Contact Us

For more information about advance care planning call 1-877-TALK-034 (1-877-825-5034) or email advancecareplanning@fraserhealth.ca .