For some terminal diseases, it is not easy to die.
Advanced dementia is especially challenging.
People in advanced dementia cannot speak for themselves. They cannot tell others what treatments they do or do not want. The reason: they will have lost mental capacity to make decisions.
If caregivers help with spoon-feeding and spoon-hydrating, dying with suffering can be prolonged. Living wills that refuse only high-tech medical treatment may not help since advanced dementia patients may have “No Plug to Pull.”
So caring loved ones may not know how to allow them to die of their underlying disease.
The “Natural Dying Living Will” strives to overcome these challenges. It can work for any terminal illness. It focuses on the most compelling reason to allow a person to die: severe suffering.
This online program, “My-Way-Cards-for-Dementia-Demo” is an excerpt of the full online program that can generate your “Natural Dying Living Will.”
Another, similar program can help patients who already have reached advanced dementia but lack an effective living will.
Both online programs use a patient decision aid, “My Way Cards.” It describes about 50 conditions.
The cards can educate you about advanced dementia and other severe illnesses.
The cards help you understand conditions so you can decide what treatment you want for each condition. The words are easy-to-understand and each card has a clarifying illustration.
Your task is to answer one question for each condition:
“Would this condition cause suffering so severe that... you want others to allow you to die to die of your underlying disease?”
If your goal is to help your relative, the question is: “...your relative would want to be allowed to die?”
This DEMO has 12 conditions; the full program has 50. It strives to be comprehensive in reflecting what people dread most about prolonged dying in advanced dementia and other terminal illnesses.)
Use the DEMO if you want to learn:
==> Can My Way Cards help you make difficult end-of-life treatment decisions?
==> Can your printed Natural Dying Living Will clearly inform others what you specifically want, to avoid future conflict?
==> Can “Natural Dying” be an effective way to allow you to die if you have “No Plug to Pull”?
==> Do you want to use the full program for your own planning (“Strategic Advance Care Planning”)?
OR,
==> Do you want to use the full program for a loved one who has already reached advanced dementia but lacks a effective living will?
“Now Care Planning” asks you and two or more others who knew the patient well, for each condition: “What would your loved one want, based on his/her values?”
If you want another person to experience this DEMO, the short cut to get there is: tinyurl.com/MyWayCardsDEMO