Advanced Directive Planning Workshop

Close your eyes and imagine you have lost the ability to make health care decisions for yourself. Due to whatever cause, your loved ones are now facing the difficult choice(s) about your health care. Think of who would be at your side. Do they know what you would want? Do they know what you wouldn’t want? What is the best way to guarantee that your wishes are known and honored in a situation like this? Talk through these situations with your family, close friends and health care providers. Be clear with them about your goals and care preferences, and then make sure to document them. While completing the process of advance care planning can be an uncomfortable topic to bring up, the benefits to you and your loved ones are significant. It will help to ensure that the care you desire is the care you receive, and prevents overtreatment or treatment by default. Having a plan will also decrease stress, depression and anxiety for you and your family. Advance care planning includes completing an advance directive, sometimes known as a living will. It also includes appointing a healthcare power of attorney, which is someone designated to make healthcare decisions on your behalf when you are no longer able to. Completing this task is even more important in the state of Vermont, as it is not automatically your next of kin (spouse, parent, adult sibling, etc.) who can make decisions if you are unable to speak for yourself. Once you have completed your advance directive, do not lock it away in a desk or safe; share it with family members and providers who may need to access it. You can also submit copies to the Vermont Advance Directive Registry to be accessed by authorized health care facilities and providers when needed. When is the best time to complete the advance care planning process? The time is now. If you have already started this process, fantastic! You are not off the hook though. Take this day to revisit your advance care planning documents and assess if they still accurately reflect your healthcare choices. Revisiting your documents is an extremely important step because as time goes by, we change, and potentially our healthcare choices may as well. A good habit would be to review every year on National Healthcare Decisions Day. Another approach would be to consider the “5 D’s” as times when your advance directive may need to be changed or updated. The “5 D’s” are: Decade birthday, Diagnosis, Deterioration, Divorce or Death of someone close to you or that affects you. All of these events may affect how you think about future health care decisions for yourself. So what is the takeaway? Plan. Talk. Document. Share. Encourage others in your life to do the same. Who facilitates it? Nicole DeNoyers & Karyn Brower, LICSW Contact Nicole DeNoyers to sign up: 802-438-8111 | nicole.denoyers@vnahsr.org