Making Decisions About End-of-Life Care

By this point, many of us have had to help our parents through decisions about medical care and in some cases, end-of-life issues. These are never easy conversations – especially if you, and not your parent, initiates them. But a growing body of research indicates that these are critical discussions. Talking with your parents about their wishes for the kind of care they want can be a profoundly valuable when you have to make medical decisions for them.

In a presentation this week at the Society of Critical Care Medicine meeting in San Diego, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said that caregivers who had not discussed life support measures with critically ill patients took nearly two weeks longer to drop further medical intervention than those who had had this conversation.

The researchers also found that family members were more confident about their decisions when they thought they were communicating well with intensive care physicians.

But how do you start such a conversation? One way would be to bring up other relatives who have faced this issue and ask your parents how they feel about the way decisions were made in that case.  If you parents are reluctant to talk about it, don't push – but you may find that they were waiting for an opportunity and didn't know how to bring it up.

Many hospitals require advance directives before starting procedures on elderly or very sick patients. This is another chance to open up a discussion.

It's tempting to put off this talk, but don't. You will be grateful to have the guidance when the decisions come down to you.

The National Institute on Aging has more good advice here.