Please write a paragraph with your opinion based on the text bellow. Please include citations and references in case you need to used for the question:

When seriously ill patients are nearing the end of life, they and their families sometimes find it difficult to decide on whether to continue medical treatment and, if so, how much treatment is wanted and for how long. In addition, when patients are hospitalized for health crises resulting from their chronic incurable disease, medical treatment cannot
cure the underlying illness, but it is still effective in resolving the immediate emergency and thus possibly extending the patient's life (Crane, Wittink, & Doukas, 2005). At any one of these crises the patient may be close to death, yet there often is no clearly recognizable threshold between being very ill and dying. Patients may become too incapacitated to speak for themselves, and decisions about which treatments to provide or withhold are usually made jointly between the patient's physician and family members. In these instances, patients may not actually be getting end-of-life treatment that they once desired.

As a nurse, supporting clients in end-of-life care and supporting their desires is important. During this stage of life, a discussion first needs to take place to find out the patient's preferences for providing or withholding treatments under certain situations. Patients should be encouraged to complete both an advance directive and durable power of attorney. The patient should understand that when no advance directive or durable power of attorney exists, they essentially leave treatment decisions to their physicians and family members. Patients should be reminded that advance directives could be revised at any time as preferences change. During these discussions, it is important that family members are also involved so that they also know their loved one’s wishes. Notably, there is evidence that “families who have had explicit discussions about dying and the patient’s wishes are more likely to agree with each other about end-of-life care preferences” (Gardner & Kramer, 2009, p. 276). Lastly, it is the nurse’s responsibility to assure that if an advance directive exists, it is collected and documented in the patient’s medical record, so not to delay decision-making.

References

Crane, M. K., Wittink, M., & Doukas, D. J. (2005). Respecting end-of-life treatment preferences. American Family Physician,72(7), 1263-1268. Retrieved from http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/16225029