Keep talking about advance directives until everyone has them

Facing a loved one's serious medical condition or end of life is always agonizing. But it approaches being unbearable when there is no way of knowing what the person would want for treatment or care.

Advance health care directives are SO IMPORTANT and can spare families a world of grief. Advance directives and why people tend to avoid them is the topic of a recent post on the New York Times' blog, "The New Old Age."

In light of the recent National Healthcare Decisions Day (April 16), consider this excerpt:

One reason is that advance directives may be misperceived, theorized Nathan Kottkamp, a health care attorney in Richmond, Va., and organizer of this month’s National Healthcare Decisions Day. People may equate such documents with limiting care, with “pulling the plug.” In fact, Mr. Kottkamp said, “Your living will can say you want every medical treatment known to science applied to you at the end of life. Or no treatment. Or anywhere on that spectrum.”