Issues on Aging: Advance Care Planning

Advanced Care Planning. Some of you may already be aware of a survey sent out by our Advisory Council regarding advanced care. And some of you are thinking:

I have enough on my plate to just think about care planning. Do I need to think about "advanced" care planning?

Advanced Directives. Does that sound a little more familiar? It's all about issues we've visited before in this space. How to communicate what you want to happen (or not happen) with severe health issues when you can no longer make your desires known.

Think Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, or Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST), Living Will, etc.; all of which we've discussed in the past and will undoubtedly re-visit.

For now, let's just take a look at what the survey is about. This type of planning obviously involves coordination between you, your doctors, family and so on. These directives are based on what you want (or don't want) and letting doctors and family know ahead of time can save a lot of grief.

Think about it: Do you want to have family members guess at what you might want? Do you want family members to bear that burden when they're in all likelihood already stressed with worry?
I feel like I need a caveat here. Even if you've completed every form you can find, emphatically informed your doctor that this is the way it's going to be, there are no absolutes. Given the emotional weight of the moment, family may need to pause, ponder, consider, whatever--and even argue for a different decision. However, at the very least, they will know what your decision is.

So, back to the survey. With the feedback from the survey our Advisory Council will work toward designing programs to inform and assist people in finding what they're looking for.
It's probably a good idea now to let you know how to access the survey--which, by the way, is anonymous.
Go to www.o3a.org and scroll down the page until you see "Health Care and Decision Making Survey" in blue. Hit the link and you're off--takes about 15 minutes or so.

This about getting a picture of what our communities look like, what they're concerned about, and how we all--in all our communities--can help one another.
Thank you for being a part of it!

Information & Assistance
Long Beach: 642 3634/888 571 6558 Raymond: 942 2177/888 571 6557
www.o3a.org