Aging series: planning for the end of life
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Heidi Wehrheim, a family practice physician, encourages patients to talk to their families about end-of-life directives. |
November 23, 2009 ·
Planning for the end of life is necessary but people don’t have a realistic picture of what that entails, according to a West Virginia doctor.
Film and
television promote an unrealistic expectation of aggressive life-prolonging and
resuscitory efforts according to family practice physician, Heidi Wehrheim,
M.D.
“We do get
a false sense that if my doctor does CPR and does give me chest compressions
and gives me all this medicine and puts a tube down my throat, I’m going to
come out of it and I’m going to be 100 percent normal and that’s not the case a lot of
the time,” said Wehrheim, who practices at Thomas Memorial Hospital in South
Charleston.
“The
majority of people who arrest have an underlying or multiple underlying issues,
and because of a lack of oxygen, because of a lack of blood flow, because of
the breaking of the bones; what comes afterwards is often worse than what we
started with,” she said.
Thomas Memorial Hospital encourages all staff to talk to
patients and families about advanced directives.
A Medical
Power of Attorney allows an individual to name a person to make medical
decisions if that individual is unable to make those decisions.
A Living
Will tells a doctor what treatments are not wanted if the individual is
terminally ill or permanently unconscious.
Wehrheim says she’s seen the trauma families go through when advanced directives are not
in place.
“Someone
with cancer or end stage heart disease will end up in the IC on a ventilator,
can’t speak for themselves, with multiple family members, and we don’t know who
makes the decisions for that patient,” said Wehrheim.
Advanced
directives are available at most doctors’ offices, hospitals, long term care
facilities and can be completed without a lawyer.
They are
also available through the West Virginia Center for End of Life Care online at
wvendoflife.org.
Wehrheim
says it’s never inappropriate or too early to formally complete your wishes and
share them with your family.
“Bringing
that up early, even at the dinner table, is much less upsetting than having a
crisis situation and trying to deal with it then,” said Wehrheim. “And there’s
some peace to be had when all this information is available ahead of
time.”