Completing Advance Care Planning Documents: Part 1
A conversation in real time on completing advance directives. Mettle Health counselor and MD Claritza Rios walks through the 5 Wishes forms with a member of the Mettle Health community. What does each section cover? What do people need to understand in order to make the best choices for themselves or someone they're caring for? These are forms all adults should have completed so they are prepared for a situation where they cannot speak for themselves. In this recording, we cover sections 1-3 of the Five Wishes form.
We discuss:
0:00 Introductions
1:31 Advance Care planning Forms, we are using Five Wishes: https://www.fivewishes.org/
2:18 This is about making your decisions know, for when you CANNOT speak for yourself. That’s when the forms become enacted.
3:13 There are themes in these documents, the one that drives the documentation, is assigning a Health Care Proxy - who will speak for you when you cannot speak for yourself. Can you add a second person?
7:07 What if I pick two people and something comes up where they don’t agree?
9:24 Requirements for who can be your Proxy
14:04 My Wishes for the Kind of Medical Treatment I Want or Don’t Want: considerations for pain management, being kept clean and warm, etc. The healthcare system will engage with life support treatment, independent of it improving your life or adhering to your values
19:54 What Does Life Support mean to you? What does it mean in general, and how do you want it applied to your care
22:50 What does life support look like in real life? What is the goal of the intervention in question? To cure, to provide comfort?
35:46 Wishes for Comfort - what we are willing to put our bodies through to prolong a life
38:00 How do people know someone’s level of pain if that person is not able to speak?