Question

Many people decide to do living wills or appoint someone as power of attorney to aid them with end of life decisions when they are no longer able.

Do you think that living wills and/or power of attorneys make the medical decisions of a person's end of life easier or more difficult for the medical staff involved?

What are the pros and cons of having each?

Explain how the C(caring) in the PRICE model relates to dealing with patients and families when it comes to end of life situations.

Answer 1

1..Yes ,making a living will or appointing someone as power of attorney makes the medical decisions of a person's end life more easier for the staffs involved in their care than those who are without these because in these cases the decision is already made and the main thing is that the decision is made by the patient itself about their end life -how they want to be treated in their end period without pain .

2. The pros and cons of living will are :-

- makes decision easier

- sometimes decisions are contradictory to the needs of the patient

- less time is utilised for making decisions

- less pain to the patient

- less time is spend on the bed

The pros and cons of power of attorney are :-

- patients opinion is not given priority

- on behalf of patient ,attender takes the decision but attender is decided by the patients itself.

3. Caring in the PRICE model of this patient in this case would be providing palliative care to the patient along with giving the patient and their family members psychological and emotional support to deal with the end of life situation.