Your doctor has chosen Five Wishes as a resource to help start and guide your advance care planning conversations, and to help you document your choices as legal directives.
FIVE WISHES
Though we don’t like to think about it, a change in health or an accident can happen to anyone. That’s why it’s important for all of us, regardless of age or health, to have a plan that documents our health care wishes in case we become unable to make important treatment decisions or communicate about choices.
Advance Care Planning involves thoughtfully considering what matters most to you, making decisions about what kind of medical care and treatments you would or would not want if you were at the end of life, and choosing a decision maker who will speak for you if you are unable. Most importantly, advance care planning involves discussing these issues and clearly communicating your wishes with your doctor and your loved ones.
Advance care planning is an important part of care for all patients, and the best time to have these conversations is when you are stable, thinking clearly, and able to ask questions. Conversations with your doctor and your health care team help them understand what you want and plan for the future. Documenting your wishes in an advance directive is an important part of the process.
“Advance directives are important because of hard decisions that may come up with your health unexpectedly, and it puts us, your doctors, sometimes in a hard spot when we don’t know what your wishes would be. Five Wishes is a way to specify your wishes for important treatment decisions before a health change or accident. Advance directives help us treat you how you want to be treated.”
FERRILL CONANT, M.D.
The person I want to make care decisions for me when I can’t.
The kind of medical treatment I want or don’t want.
How comfortable I want to be.
How I want people to treat me.
What I want my loved ones to know.
• More than 25 million people have used Five Wishes to explore and document their health care wishes. It is the most widely used advance directive form in the country.
• Five Wishes meets the legal requirements for an advance directive in 42 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (all states are listed on the 3rd page of the document).
• Five Wishes is easy for everyone to understand and complete. Through easy-to-follow steps, it guides the conversation with your doctor and your loved ones.
• Five Wishes helps you express your wishes in areas that matter most – the personal and spiritual in addition to the medical and legal. It helps you describe what good end-of-life care means to you, whether you are seriously ill or not.
• Completing Five Wishes is a gift to your family, friends and your doctor because it keeps them out of the difficult position of having to guess what kind of treatment you want or don’t want, and helps provide them with peace of mind – knowing that they honored your choices.
THE NEXT STEP
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